British IS hostage appears for first time in a year
A BRITISH hostage held by Islamic State (IS) for more than three years has appeared in a video posted online by the terror group.
It is the first sign in more than a year that John Cantlie, 45, a photojournalist kidnapped in Syria in 2012, may still be alive. The film shows him apparently standing in front of a bombedout building, mocking US attempts to destroy IS by airstrikes. But this weekend his friends dismissed the video, saying they were not the ‘words of a free man’.
Mr Cantlie is the last of six Western hostages held by a group of British IS jail guards nicknamed the Beatles.
Five of the hostages, who included Britons David Haines, 44, and Alan Henning, 47, were beheaded last year in gruesome IS videos by ‘Jihadi John’, whose real name was Mohammed Emwazi. He died last year in an American drone strike.
Mr Cantlie claims in the three-minute video to be speaking from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which has become the capital of IS in that country.
Like his last video, which was posted on the internet in February 2015, Mr Cantlie speaks to camera as if he were a TV reporter presenting a news programme.
Dressed in black and looking gaunt, he says the ‘mighty’ US military has become so desperate that it has resorted to bombing IS media kiosks, small huts where the group distributes leaflets to civilians.