ISIS released a second video featuring British photojournalist John Cantlie on Monday, hours after the launch of U.S.-led airstrikes against the terrorist group in Syria, New York Daily News reported. The video comes less than a week after Cantlie's first appearance on screen following his kidnapping in Syria in 2012.
The footage, which lasts for almost six minutes, shows Cantlie, held hostage by the Islamic State for 22 months, seated behind a desk for the latest "lecture series" and reading from a script provided by his captors.
The 43-year-old introduces himself as "the British citizen abandoned by my government and long-term prisoner of the Islamic State," while wearing an orange jumpsuit, similar to those worn by prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. "Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making," he says.
"Senior U.S. politicians seemed content to call the Islamic State nasty names: awful, vile, a cancer, an insult to our values," he continues. "But such petty insults don't really do much harm to the most powerful jihadist movement seen in recent history."
An experienced journalist and photographer, this is Cantlie's second time being held captive in Syria. Having been kidnapped in July 2012 and handcuffed and blindfolded for a week, he escaped with the help from the Free Syrian Army, according to BBC News.
In November 2012, the war correspondent was kidnapped again with American journalist James Foley - whose barbaric murder drew international outrage when it was recorded and posted online.
Meanwhile, the sheer speed with which the Islamic State expanded its power caught the Western governments off guard, Cantlie said, adding that the Obama administration is so perplexed to be marching back into Iraq that they are "tap dancing" around the issue in a "we're getting involved but we're not getting involved kind of way."
Pre-combat agreements - airstrikes only, no boots on the ground, limited operation time, no mission creep - are often forgotten after about six months into these sorts of conflicts, according to the script.
In addition, Obama's harsh words for his predecessor, George W. Bush, are also referenced by Cantlie, according to NYDN. "What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war," Obama, back when he was a senator, said in Chicago on Oct. 2, 2002.
The estimated 15,000 troops needed to fight ISIS are "laughably low," Cantlie says, who opens and closes the "lecture" with quotes from former CIA Officer Michael Scheuer.
Since August, ISIS has beheaded three Western hostages: U.S. journalists Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid worker David Haines.
