British journalist John Cantlie, abducted in Syria in November 2012, has made his eighth video for the Islamic State.
Cantlie was seized with US journalist James Foley, who was beheaded last August by the jihadists. His previous videos have outlined the aims of the Islamic State, defended it against criticism, and portrayed its “victory” in Kobane in northern Syria, where it has been fighting Kurdish forces since September.
In the latest video, Cantlie opens, “We are on top of the world in Mosul”, Iraq’s second city which was captured by the Islamic State in June 2014: “It’s an absolute heartland of the Caliphate”, announced last summer, “with two million people from nearly every walk of life”.
Proclaiming the city’s recovery since “American-led invasions and pro-Iranian Governments”, Cantlie claims to counter media projections of “life in the Islamic State as depressed, [with] people walking around as subjugated citizens in chains, beaten down by strict totalitarian rule”. People are carrying out “business as usual” without “fear of Shia oppression”.
Cantlie strolls through a “bustling, crazy market” — though, with the close-up shot on him, the busy-ness and craziness is not apparent — to show people “are not living in fear” and there are no economic difficulties and shortages of electricity.
There is also a visit to a “special children’s unit” of a Mosul hospital to show “plenty of electricity” and medicines, and presentation of an effective police force in contrast to the one that “ran away” when the Islamic State moved into the city last June.
The hostage mocks a surveillance plane — presumably of the US-led coalition which intervened in Iraq last August — overhead: “Down here. Over here….Trying to rescue me again?…Useless. Absolutely useless.”
