New Video of British Isis Hostage John Cantlie Criticising Obama's 'Predictable Military Strategy'
In a forced speech during an Isis propaganda video, UK hostage John Cantlie speaks out against the US air strikes on the militant Islamic group.
Talking directly to the camera, Cantlie said that organising the Iraqi army will take months and portrays the Free Syrian Army as an "undisciplined, corrupt and largely ineffective fighting force."
At the beginning of the footage, the photo-journalist calls himself as a long-term prisoner of the Islamic State, and says he has been "abandoned" by his government.
In this latest and third video, Cantlie seems to be sitting in a darkened room behind a wooden desk similar to the previous video. He is again wearing an orange jumpsuit, while his beard and hair are about the same length, so the two videos were probably shot within a close time frame.
On the US-led airstrikes, Cantlie says: "Air power is good at taking out specific targets but it is not much use a taking and holding ground.
"For that you need effective and disciplined troops and it is hard to see how this hotch-potch army with a long history of underperforming is going to be any form of credible infantry."
In a report for the BBC, Shiraz Maher, a senior fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation said: "Mr Cantlie is supposed to provide a seemingly neutral assessment of the confrontation ahead. This is Islamic State's "good cop, bad cop" approach.
"Few believe that Mr Cantlie is speaking his own mind in these videos and the purpose of the videos as propaganda is clear."
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