An American boy was apparently used in an ISIS propaganda video to threaten U.S. President Donald Trump.
A child who says he is of U.S. origin was featured in a video of the terrorist group, CBS News reported. The boy can be heard speaking with a distinctly American accent.
He warned Trump and the United States that the battle against the terrorist group “is not gonna end in Raqqa or Mosul,” but instead, “in your lands.”
The video featuring the alleged “cub” was released Wednesday, Aug. 23, showing the boy identifying himself as Yousef while saying he’s 10 years old. He says he lives in Raqqa, Syria, but not where he previously lived inside the United States.
He said he didn’t “know much about Islam except the name” before he arrived in ISIS territory.
He became friends with another child, 7-year-old Abdullah from the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, he said. Abdullah and Yousef are shown washing each other with water, and Abdullah speaks about ISIS taking him when they “liberated Sinjar.”
The group released the video, titled “This Fertile Nation #4” on YouTube and other websites.
“My message to Trump, the puppet of the Jews: Allah has promised us victory and promised you defeat,” Yousef said, adding, “We are not scared of their planes, because we know they don’t fly except by the rule of Allah.”
Iraq last month declared victory over ISIS in Mosul, after a nine-month-long campaign.
(AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, more than 170 civilians have been killed by U.S.-led strikes on ISIS in Raqqa in the past week, a spike in casualties since an offensive to oust the militants began more than two months ago, a war monitor and sources told Reuters.
The U.S.-led coalition against ISIS said attacks on militant targets were conducted routinely and the allegation had been sent to their teams for assessment.
The monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 42 people, including 19 children and 12 women, were killed on Monday, Aug. 21, in strikes that destroyed buildings where families were sheltering.
The U.K.-based Observatory said that was the single largest daily death toll since the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias, began their assault on Raqqa last June after a long campaign to isolate ISIS inside the city.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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