Islamic State releases 2nd video with UK hostage

The Islamic State group on Monday released another video showing a British journalist who says he is a prisoner of the terrorist group.

The video featuring John Cantlie, a photojournalist, is the second in a series IS calls, “Lend me your Ears.” It was removed by YouTube shortly after it was posted.

The slick, five-and-a-half-minute video mocked US President Barack Obama’s September 10 speech laying out his strategy for countering IS.

“When exactly Gulf War III will start and how long it will take isn’t covered,” said Cantlie, clad in an orange jumpsuit and sitting in front of black background. “US advisors working with the Iraqi Army have described their performance as ‘consistently grim.'”

“The Free Syrian Army are proven to be an undisciplined, corrupt, and largely ineffective fighting force…Giving the FSA 500 million [dollars] now is a completely pointless exercise,” he continued. “Never mind the fact that the FSA sells the weapons the West gives them to arms dealers and smugglers, and much of it then ends up with the Islamic State.”

Cantlie also mocked Obama’s language as “simplistic” and said that support in the US for his efforts against IS remains low. He also claimed that IS was not responsible for the slaughter of Christians and Yazidis in Iraq, and that it does not consider Shi’ites to be Muslims.

“For their part, the Islamic State say they welcome meeting Obama’s under-construction army, ” he ended. “Join me again for the next program.”

In the first video, released a week and a half before, Cantlie said he worked for publications including The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sunday Telegraph and came to Syria in November 2012 where he was subsequently captured by the Islamic State group.

The group which now controls roughly a third of Syria and Iraq has beheaded two US journalists and a British aid worker, and has threatened to kill another British hostage.

The clips released by the Islamic State group’s media arm, Al-Furqan, were different than previous videos.

Entitled “Lend me your ears,” they are part of a series of lecture-like “programs” in which Cantlie says he will reveal “the truth” about the Islamic State group.

No Islamic State fighters appear in the videos, which were posted online by users associated with the Islamic state group and reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, a US terrorism watchdog.

In addition to beheaded US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines, the Islamic State group has threatened to kill Alan Henning, a British former taxi driver who was taken captive in December shortly after joining an aid convoy and crossing the border from Turkey into Syria.

AP contributed to this report