Video featuring British hostage claims Syria's Kobane under IS control

A new video released by the Islamic State (IS) featuring British hostage John Cantlie has declared that the Syrian city of Kobane is under the control of the terror group.

Denying western media reports, Cantlie claimed in a five-minute-long segment in the video that the IS fighters are "mopping-up" and the all-out battle for the city is over. He declared that the city has been captured by the group, reported the CNN.

The video released on Monday portrayed Cantlie as a reporter in the field describing Kobane. He was dressed in black and stood close enough to the border to see Turkish flags in the background.

Describing the video as "purely a propaganda play," Philip Mudd, a former CIA counterterrorism official, said that although the video is designed to show the strength of the IS but it actually reveals their weakness. He noted that the video was the group's response to what they viewed as western media's portraying them as losing in Kobane.

The video also made a reference to the weapons airdropped by the United States for the Kurdish soldiers that were seized by the group.

Fighting between Kurdish forces and IS fighters has been raging in the strategic town that is located on the Syrian-Turkish border for over a month. Almost 800 people have been killed in the conflict, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.