MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group has released a video on YouTube showing British journalist John Cantlie, held captive by the group, criticizing the US-led campaign against the IS and accusing Washington of underestimating the terrorists' power.
"Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making. Current estimates of 15,000 troops needed to fight the Islamic State are laughably low. The state has more mujahideen [fighters] than this. This is not some undisciplined outfit with a few Kalashnikovs," Cantlie, dressed in orange, said in the footage uploaded to YouTube on Monday.
The captive journalist also said US President Barack Obama is starting a war he cannot win, repeating the mistake of his predecessor George W. Bush.
"The president once called Bush's Iraq conflict a "dumb war," and couldn't wait to distance America from it when he came into power. Now he's being inextricably drawn back in," Cantlie said.
Cantlie, a British reporter and photojournalist, was seized in Syria with a US journalist James Foley back in 2012. Foley and another American reporter, Steven Sotloff, were later beheaded by IS militants on camera.
The IS Sunni extremist group proclaimed an Islamic caliphate on territories under its control across Iraq and Syria in June. In August, the United States launched airstrikes against IS targets in Iraq and carried out the first anti-IS attack on Syrian territory Tuesday.
