British journalist John Cantlie, who is being held prisoner by the Islamic State group, appeared in a new video released Saturday supposedly filmed in the extremists’ Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.
In the latest instalment in a series of propaganda videos released by Islamic State, Cantlie speaks to the camera in the style of a news report.
It is unclear when it was shot, but Cantlie last appeared in an Islamic State video in early 2015.
In Saturday’s video, a gaunt-looking Cantlie says he is in Mosul, Islamic State’ main city in northern Iraq.
Dressed in black and squinting in the sunshine, he is seen standing in front of a metal shack he describes as a media kiosk that distributes Islamic State pamphlets, which was destroyed in an air strike by a US-led coalition.
Speaking in English with Arabic subtitles, as in previous clips of the same style, Cantlie criticises and derides the US-led campaign launched in 2014 against Islamic State.
He was kidnapped along with journalist James Foley in November 2012 in Syria while covering the war there.
Foley then became the first of several hostages to be slain by the extremists.
Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders has condemned Islamic State for its “cowardly” use of a hostage in a forced role to push the extremists’ propaganda.
