Footage of high-profile Australian TV star used in latest IS video

Canberra, Feb 4: Footage of one of Australia's leading television personalities has appeared in the latest Islamic State (IS) propaganda video that calls on more supporters to join their war against the West.

The 12-minute video, released on Thursday morning (Australian time) on IS's underground communication network, includes vision of Australian TV host Karl Stefanovic reporting in Paris after the attacks on the French capital in November, Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

Stefanovic, an Australian presenter and journalist with the Nine Network, is one of the country's most popular on-screen personalities.

The 49-year-old was recording a live piece-to-camera outside the Le Carillion bar in Paris -- where more than a dozen of the 130 people were killed during the attacks -- when several loud bangs, mistaken for gun shots, sent a swarm of fearful pedestrians running down the street.

The IS video, entitled "So we will give him a good life," also features still images of U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande, as well as other horrific images from last year's Paris attacks.

It also shows footage of the attack, which IS later claimed responsibility for, on a disability center in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14 people and seriously injured 22 others in the worst mass shooting on U.S. soil since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012.

Not only has video served to boost morale of IS troops, the latest piece of propaganda shows the high life new recruits can expect when they venture to Syria's war-torn regions of Aleppo and Raqqa.

However, the latest first-hand accounts contradict the video, with many reports saying the regime is struggling to hold territory in Iraq and Syria and provide troops with basic sustenance.

The Nine Network declined to comment on the video.

IANS