Reports have found that Islamic State (ISIS) militants are planning to launch an exclusive online TV news channel of their own, with John Cantlie as the news presenter.
Vocativ, which has undertaken several such deep-web investigations, discovered a "teaser" for the new channel on ISIS forums. The online ISIS news channel will only broadcast propaganda videos of the jihadist group and will reportedly be called "The Islamic Caliphate Broadcast".
The ISIS news channel is expected to be live on KhilafaLive.info. The purported channel link - KhilafaLive.info had played several ISIS propaganda videos and music till last Saturday, after which the website was inaccessible.
ISIS, which already has a radio station in Mosul -- the second largest city in Iraq -- reportedly will telecast first of its news series on Wednesday 5pm.
British ISIS captive John Cantlie, is said to be the news presenter for the channel. Cantlie has featured in several ISIS propaganda videos. In the latest video for ISIS released on 3 January, he reported from Mosul, while in a previous video he was seen reporting from Kobane, Syria.
While, there is still no confirmation on the authenticity of the claim, it is reported that the webpage KhilafaLive.info was registered in December and has been lying unused since.
ISIS has not made any claims till now. J M Berger, an analyst who follows jihadist movements online, told Washington Post: "My best guess is this is a fanboy effort."