Abducted journalist says Islamic State ‘dug in for the fight’ and foreign jihadis could return to home countries to carry out attacks

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Militants from Islamic State (Isis) have released a fourth video showing a British journalist held hostage and delivering a message under duress.

John Cantlie, who has been held for almost two years, said Isis was “dug in for the fight” in a seven-minute video that emerged on Sunday.

Appearing to offer a scripted argument, he said the western public is being rushed into a war it cannot win, against thousands of armed militants.

Wearing an orange jumpsuit akin to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Cantlie, 43, warns “anyone hoping for a nice neat surgical operation without getting their hands dirty is in for a horrible surprise once it gets under way”.

Cantlie describes the release of gruesome videos of his fellow captives such as journalist Steven Sotloff or aid worker Alan Henning being killed as a “win win” for Isis.

He said: “If these executions force public outcry or a policy change, that is a huge victory. And if they only goad our governments into dropping more bombs and spending millions more dollars, making our countries weaker in the process, that is a victory too.”

Cantlie was kidnapped for a second time 22 months ago after entering the country as a freelance photojournalist. He has worked for various newspapers including the Sunday Times. Last week Cantlie’s father Paul made an emotional plea to Isis from his hospital bed for his captors to release his son.

The video’s emergence follows the publication of an English language magazine produced by Isis. The magazine, called Dabiq, claims to confirm that Isis has taken hundreds of Yazidi women and children as slaves. The article says they have been divided among Isis fighters, are being sold on by them, and also suggests they are being used as “concubines”.

In August the imprisonment and rape of the Yazidi population in northern Iraq was condemned as “barbaric” by the UN.

The 56-page colour magazine also purports to publish a longer essay from Cantlie which gives details about his capture.

In the article, “Hard Talk – The Real Story Behind My Videos”, the author claims that he has been left in a “dark room with a mattress on the floor” in an absolute information vacuum. “I try to stay very calm, tolerant and accepting of my situation … I am thankful for any comfort I receive and for every plate of food I get.”

Taking a similar line of argument as the videos Cantlie has presented, most of the feature lambasts the US and UK governments for not saving his fellow cell-mates – executed in “the most visceral way possible” – by refusing to negotiate. At no point does the 2,100 word article blame Isis for killing the four hostages.

“We’d come all this way, putting one foot in front of the other, supporting one another when it got tough, praying together every day.

“We used to call it the Dead Zone when things got bad, after the area Everest climbers face above 26,000 feet as they approach the summit, when every step is agony, when they hardly have enough strength to carry on.”

It also includes a grim warning that Cantlie may also be murdered; the article reads: “Unless something changes very quickly and very radically, I await my turn.”

The magazine’s website also claims to publish a message from one of the previously beheaded captives, Sotloff, to his mother.

There has as yet been no verification of whether the message was sent to Shirley Sotloff before her son’s death and following her own direct plea to Isis militants in late August.

The purported message is in much the same vein as Cantlie’s video, arguing that his life lay in the hands of Obama and not those who eventually killed him.