Captive journo films a 'travelogue' for jihadists

John Cantlie, the British journalist held by the Islamic State, has produced another propaganda video.

Intended to show that life is carrying on as normal in the Jihadist-controlled city of Mosul, it is produced in the style of a television travelogue.

Cantlie's eight-minute portrayal of Iraq's second-largest city strives to dispute reports of a population living in fear. The journalist was kidnapped along with James Foley, a US photographer in November 2012.

But unlike Foley - and six other Westerners captured by Isis and its Algerian offshoot - Cantlie was not beheaded. Instead the Jihadist group has used Cantlie's professional skills to promote its case in a slick series of videos.

In the first four videos, Cantlie was filmed sitting at a desk wearing the same orange jump suit as the prisoners who were beheaded. In the fifth he was photographed parading around the city of Kobane.

In this latest production - Inside Mosul - he is filmed as a roving reporter, even driving himself in one shot and riding a powerful motorbike in another.

"Today we're on top of the world, overlooking Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq and under the complete control of the Islamic State for over five months," he says, as he prepares to showcase the metropolis of two million people.

Wearing ordinary casual clothes, he goes on: "One is struck by how normal and crazy and busy everything is. It is not a city living in fear, as the Western media would have you believe."

He disputes a report in The Guardian of daily power cuts as he visits the city's souk, enthusiastically pointing out the flashing neon and bright lights.

"This is not an empty deserted place at all; it is bustling," he adds.

"I can see thousands of people, thousands of Iraqis, going about their daily business in Mosul after years of oppression under Saddam's rule and the descent into chaos after the American intervention."

Visiting a hospital, he says that doctors are getting the medicine they need before going to a ward where children are being treated for psychiatric problems caused, Cantlie adds, by the bombing.

Dismissing reports that law and order had broken down because the police had fled, Cantlie rides a police motorbike, with an officer seated behind him.

"It seems as if the police are redundant, despite having a very firm presence. There is very little crime here in Mosul."

At one point his narrative almost appears to be trying to strike a Churchillian note.

"The Islamic State is prevailing, they can take it," he says.