IS releases new video of British hostage John Cantlie

ISLAMIC State terrorists have released a third video of captured British journalist John Cantlie, in which he attacks Barack Obama’s strategy in Iraq and Syria.

ISLAMIC State terrorists have released a third video of John Cantlie, a British journalist held prisoner for two years.

In the latest video, Cantlie delivers a scripted speech attacking Barack Obama’s strategy in Iraq and Syria.

Mr Cantlie, who was wearing an orange jumpsuit, delivers the words directly to the camera.

He appears pale and thin, and he sounds more stressed than in the previous two videos. His presentation also seemed less polished than in the previous videos.

In words that were no doubt written by his captors, he criticises Barack Obama’s tactics of using air strikes and Kurdish and Iraqi ground forces against the Islamic State.

“Air power is good at taking out specific targets but it is not good at taking and holding ground,” he said, sitting behind the same desk as before with the back screen behind him.

“For that you need effective and disciplined troops and it’s hard to see how this hotch potch army with a long history of underperforming is going to be any form of credible infantry.”

New installment... In the latest IS released video journalist John Cantlie says he came to Syria in November 2012 where he was subsequently captured by the Islamic State group. Picture:AP

He added that organising the Iraqi army into a proper fighting force would take months and dismissed the Free Syrian Army as “undisciplined, corrupt and largely ineffective”.

Cantlie targets Obama’s speech which was delivered on the 13th anniversary of 9/11.

He quotes from a New York Times article critical of Mr Obama’s strategy, and accuses the American president of using predictable and simplistic language.

The words attempt to disprove accusations that IS lacks a vision and is interested only in murder.

“Islamic State does have a vision: they have created an autonomous and functioning caliphate,” he said, before promising future videos.

“Join me again for the next programme.”

The Islamic State released the previous Cantlie videos - bizarrely titled “Lend Me Your Ears” - on September 18 and 23, the later one the same day that the U.S. began bombing raids on Islamic State targets inside Syria.

Cantlie does not mention the airstrikes, suggesting that the third video was recorded before the strikes had taken place.

The Islamic State released three videos documenting the executions of two Americans and a Briton in August.

They’ve threatened to behead a fourth hostage. The group is said to hold about 20 Westerners, including at least two more Americans, none of whom have appeared on video.

IS closes in on a Kurdish area of Syria

Meanwhile, Islamic State militants are closing in on a Kurdish area of Syria on the border with Turkey - an advance unhindered so far by US-led coalition air strikes.

Islamic State fighters pounded the city of Kobani with mortars and artillery shells, advancing within five kilometres of the Kurdish frontier city, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a Kurdish official.

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The Islamic extremists intensified their shelling of the border region following US-led strikes on Saturday.

Turkish tanks dispatched...Islamic State fighters are reportedly advancing with heavy weaponry on the strategic Kurdish border town of Kobani (also called Ayn Al-Arab). Picture: Getty Images

US-led aerial assaults appear to have done little to thwart the militants, Kurdish officials and activists said, adding that if anything, the extremists seemed more determined to seize the area. The strategic border town would deepen their control over territory stretching from the Turkish border, across Syria and to the western edge of Baghdad.

“Instead of pushing them back, now every time they hear the planes, they shell more,” Ahmad Sheikho, an activist operating along the Syria-Turkey border, said of the IS fighters. He estimated he heard a rocket explosion every 15 minutes or so.

Three mortar shells landed in a field in nearby Turkey, the Turkish military said in a statement. After the strike, Turkey’s military moved tanks away from the army post in the area, positioning them on a hill overlooking the border.

The push by Islamic State fighters caused thousands more Kurds to flee the Kobani area on Monday, adding to some 150,000 refugees who have fled to Turkey since mid-September, one of the largest influxes of Syrian refugees since the war began three years ago.

Camaraderie...Turkish soldiers standby as Turkish Kurds gather nearby to express their solidarity with Kurdish fighters in Kobani, Syria, at the Turkey-Syria border near Suruc, Turkey. Picture:AP/Burhan Ozbilici

The Kurds were particularly fearful that the militants would repeat the mass killings of men and seizures of women that occurred in Iraq in August, after IS fighters seized villages dominated by Iraqis of the Yazidi minority.

Men were leaving their families in Turkey and then heading back to Kobani to fight, Sheikho said.

Washington and its Arab allies opened the air assault against the extremist group on September 23, striking military facilities, training camps, heavy weapons and oil installations.

The campaign expands upon the air strikes the United States has been conducting against the militants in Iraq since early August.

The air strikes are meant to ultimately destroy the group, which has declared a self-styled caliphate, or Islamic state, ruled by its harsh interpretation of Islamic law in areas under its control. Its brutal tactics, which include mass killings and beheadings, have galvanised the international community to take on the militants.

On Monday, the US-led coalition carried out eight air strikes targeting towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria controlled by the militants.

Watching on...Syrian Kurds stand on a hill looking down on clashes between jihadists of the Islamic State and Kurdish fighters, close to the Turkish-Syrian border in Sanlinurfa province. Picture:AFP/Bulent Kilic

One strike hit a grain silo in the northern town of Manbij, setting it ablaze and killing two civilians working there, according to the Observatory’s director, Rami Abdurrahman.

“There was no ISIS inside,” Abdurrahman said, using an alternative name for the Islamic State group. The air strikes, he said, “destroyed the food that was stored there.”

The US Central Command said the silo was used by the militants “as a logistics hub and vehicle staging facility.”

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the US was investigating reports that civilians were killed in the strike, but had found nothing so far to corroborate the allegation. He acknowledged, however, that because of limitations of Pentagon intelligence in Syria, the U.S. could not be certain that every casualty of the coalition air strikes was a combatant.

Another strike overnight hit the entrance of Syria’s largest gas plant in the eastern Deir el-Zour province, but did not damage the facility itself, the Observatory said. US Central Command said the strikes in Deir al-Zour hit two military vehicles.

Fleeing...Tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds flooded into Turkey fleeing an onslaught by the jihadist Islamic State group that prompted an appeal for international intervention. Picture: AFP/Bulent Kilic

More raids on Monday morning struck the town of Tel Abyad on the Syria-Turkey border, according to a resident on the Turkish side of the frontier.

Mehmet Ozer, who witnessed the air strikes from the Turkish side of the border, told the Associated Press the raids hit an abandoned military base and an empty school, sending smoke and dust into the air. He said militants evacuated the base about three months ago.

“They (the coalition) must not have fresh intelligence,” Ozer said.

U.S. Central Command said the strikes targeted a compound and an airfield used by the Islamic State group.

The U.S.-led coalition includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan. Several European countries also are contributing to US efforts to strike the Islamic State group in Iraq, including France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Britain.

Air strikes continue...U.S.-led coalition air raids targeted towns and villages in northern and eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State group. Picture:AP/Burhan Ozbilici

The two purported civilian casualties in Manbij would add to the 19 civilians the Observatory says have already been killed in the coalition air strikes.

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch said it had confirmed the deaths of at least seven civilians - two women and five children - from apparent US missile strikes on September 23 in the village of Kafr Derian in northeast Syria. The New York-based group said two men were also killed in the strikes, but they may have been militants.

“The United States and its allies in Syria should be taking all feasible precautions to avoid harming civilians,” said Human Rights Watch official Nadim Houry.

“The US government should investigate possible unlawful strikes that killed civilians, publicly report on them, and commit to appropriate redress measures in case of wrongdoing.”