This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The FBI has asked the public to help identify an English-speaking member of the Islamic state (Isis) who appears in propaganda videos, as well as anyone who might travel abroad to join the militant group.

“We need the public’s assistance in identifying US persons going to fight overseas with terrorist groups or who are returning home from fighting overseas,” said Michael Steinbach, assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division in a press release.

The agency is specifically looking for help identifying a man in a 55-minute propaganda video released on 19 September. The man wears desert camouflage, a black balaclava and a shoulder holster, while he instructs prisoners to dig their own graves, and then presides over their executions.

“We’re hoping that someone might recognise this individual and provide us with key pieces of information,” Steinbach said. “No piece of information is too small.”

The FBI said it believes the man in the video has a North American accent, and that the video is meant to appeal to potential western recruits.

Several Americans have faced prosecutions for attempting to join terrorist groups such as Isis.

On Monday, a Chicago teen was arrested in O’Hare airport for allegedly attempting to travel to Turkey, to eventually join ISIS. Last month, a New York man pled guilty to attempting to travel to Yemen in 2012 to support al Qaeda. In 2013, a Brooklyn man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sending $1,000 to what he believed what a Pakistani jihadist, and attempting to meet the man. Two years ago, a Chicago man pleaded guilty to planning to travel to Somalia to join al Shabaab.

