IS releases second video of British hostage John Cantlie

Islamic State (IS) extremists posted a new video online featuring a man believed to be British photographer John Cantlie, after the US and other Gulf Arab nations launched air strikes against IS in Syria overnight.

The five minute lecture-style video shows Mr Cantlie appearing to read from script and saying that America risked being involved in a long war that it could not win. It appears to have been recorded before attacks in Syria overnight.

IS, which now controls a large region within Syria and Iraq, has murdered two US journalists and a British aid worker and released videos of the executions, saying that they are in retalliation for American threats against them.

In this most recent video, the man identified as Mr Cantlie appeared in an orange shirt, with closely cropped hair and beard, and described Isis as the “most powerful jihadist movement seen in recent history”.

He said: “We’ll see how the Western governments are hastily marching towards all-out war in Iraq and Syria without paying any heed to the lessons of the recent past. Not since Vietnam have we witnessed such a potential mess in the making.”