Kobani news report
ISIS releases a video showing Cantlie apparently reporting on the situation in Kobani. (Full video here.) In the unedited footage a black-dressed Cantlie with a goatee beard and longer hair says the battle for the city is over, and notes that it is quiet except for very occasional sporadic automatic weapons fire, which can be heard in the background. He cites Patrick Cockburn’s article in The Independent about how Kobani was on the brink of falling to ISIS. He also quotes U.S. administration officials as saying the town was strategically unimportant, and Kerry’s statement indicating that Turkish president Erdogan is unwilling to help the Kurds. The video starts out with aerial footage said to be from an ISIS drone of ‘Ayn Arab,’ its Arabic name.
All I see here in the city is mujahideen, no YPG, PKK, or peshmerga in sight.
He says no journalists are in the city and media are getting their information from Kurdish commanders and the White House:
America is very keen for Kobani to be seen as a symbol of victory
He says the battle is over:
The battle is coming to an end. The mujahideen are going from street to street and just mopping up now…Urban warfare is about as tough and as nasty as it gets, and it is something of a specialty of the mujahideen
Fifth ISIS video
Cantlie again describes himself as a British citizen abandoned by his government. He dismisses the military response’s effectiveness:
Obama is terribly busy insisting US ground troops won’t be going back into Iraq. Thus even the Pentagon admits airstrikes are a stop-gap military measure that will not disrupt the Islamic State activities.
He says it is a political tactic:
Meanwhile, America puts 1,200 troops into Baghdad to protect their embassy and the airport. Surely sounds like boots on ground to me… The rise of the Islamic State give Obama a chance to look tough in the media just as midterm elections approach.
On relations between the U.S. and ethnic and sectarian minorities:
Since when has America cared about the fate of a minority in the Muslim lands? Modern history is sadly littered with religious minorities being crushed and neither the U.S. nor anyone else said anything.
Fourth ISIS video
Cantlie warns of the dangers of a ground war:
Anyone hoping for a nice neat surgical operation without getting their hands dirty is in for a horrible surprise once it gets underway.
If these executions force public outcry or a policy change, that is a huge victory. And if they only goad our governments into dropping more bombs and spending millions more dollars, making our countries weaker in the process, that is a victory, too.
Third ISIS video
Cantlie appears in a third video, criticizing Obama’s speech about ISIS and the coalition plans:
It was all disappointingly predictable; America is good, the Islamic State is bad; and they will be defeated using aircraft and a motley collection of fighters on the ground. For their part the Islamic State say they welcome meeting Obama’s under-construction army.
Second ISIS video
ISIS releases a second video of Cantlie:
I’m John Cantlie, the British citizen abandoned by my government
He criticizes the U.S.’s involvement in the fight against ISIS, including a quote from Obama’s time as a senator in which he says he opposes a ‘rash war.’
[Obama] has been inexorably drawn back in, but he’s at pains to point out that this is not the equivalent of the Iraq War. Indeed, it’s far more complicated and prone to failure.
He says the ‘pre-9/11 Afghans’ are once again in control of a large part of Afghanistan and that the estimated 15,000 troops needed to fight ISIS are ‘laughably low,’ and the ‘full might of the American war machine’ can’t stop the group.
Hostage video released
ISIS releases a video showing Cantlie, a British photojournalist kidnapped in Syria in 2012, speaking on behalf of the group. Cantlie acknowledges that he is a captive:
Now, I know what you are thinking. ‘He is only doing this because he is a prisoner, he’s got a gun at his head
He says that this video and future productions will give more information about ISIS:
There are two sides to every story. Think you’re getting the whole picture?
He questions the motivations for the west becoming involved:
After two disastrous and hugely unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, why is it that our governments appear so keen to get involved in yet another unwinnable conflict?
