Nine Network footage of Today show host Karl Stefanovic has featured in an Islamic State propaganda video that urges followers of the extremist group to immigrate and appeals for new recruits.
The slick 12-minute video, released overnight on Wednesday via an Islamic State channel on the encrypted communication service Telegram, begins with scenes of heavily armed police and armoured vehicles mobilising as the deadly December 2015 attack in San Bernardino, California, unfolds.
The video, titled “So we will give him a good life”, then cuts to Stefanovic as he was reporting live on camera from outside Le Carillion bar, where more than a dozen people were killed in the Islamic State assault on Paris in November.
Stefanovic is seen reacting as heavily armed police swarm the scene and crowds flee after hearing a series of loud bangs, which at the time were mistaken for gunshots.
Stefanovic was caught up in a stampede when a gathered crowd was spooked by a loud bang in the wake of the Paris attacks | Image | YouTube
The video, seen by AAP, then cuts to still-shots of US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande, followed by pictures of bodies in the streets of Paris.
The video includes a narrator praising the attacks in San Bernardino and Paris.
It includes footage of fighters training, and holding weapons and children in their arms, as well as interviews with people painting an idyllic picture of life under Islamic State.
Children are seen building sand castles, while men snorkel and catch fish amid a picturesque backdrop.
However, residents of the extremist group’s self-declared capital of Raqqa in Syria have painted a very different picture, pointing to a failing regime that is struggling to provide even basic services and food, and describing Raqqa as a giant prison.
The US-led coalition in recent weeks reported that Islamic State’s territory shrank by 40 per cent in Iraq and 20 per cent in Syria last year.
Nine Network declined to comment.
-AAP
WATCH Stefanovic caught in a stampede after the Paris attacks here:
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