Today, John Cantlie is best known for being a hostage of the terrorist group ISIS. But as the photos below show, he is also an extraordinary photojournalist. His images from the Libyan and Syrian civil wars are often beautiful, but also tell a story about the price of war — and the reasons people are willing to pay it.
9 amazing photos by John Cantlie, one of ISIS’s last western hostages
Cantlie, who is British, was captured in November 2012 while traveling in Syria with American journalist James Foley. That was Cantlie’s second abduction — had previously been kidnapped in July 2012, but was rescued a week later by members of the Free Syrian Army. ISIS has released four videos of Cantlie in which he is forced to deliver propaganda messages on-camera. The group has threatened to kill him. Cantlie is believed to be one of ISIS’s two remaining Western hostages, along with an American woman whose name is not known. ISIS has murdered all of its other American and British hostages.
There is still hope that Cantlie could somehow make it home alive. But if he does not, these photos are a testament to his bravery in pursuing the stories that he wanted to tell, and his skill in telling them.
Syria
A young man and his brother gesture during an anti-Assad protest in the town of Binnish on April 9, 2012 in Syria. (John Cantlie/Getty Images)
John Cantlie/Getty Images
Young men burn posters of Bashar al-Assad during a night demonstration against the regime on April 9, 2012 in Binnish, Syria. (John Cantlie/Getty Images)
Women gesture during an anti-Assad protest in the town of Binnish on April 9, 2012 in Binnish, Syria. (John Cantlie/Getty Images)
Rebels of the Free Syrian Army take time to pray during a five-hour firefight against government tanks.(John Cantlie/Getty Images)
(John Cantlie/Getty Images)
A Syrian rebel mourns the death of a comrade.(John Cantlie/Getty Images)
Syrian opposition fighter Bazel Araj sleeps next to his gun in the northern city of Aleppo on November 11, 2012. (John Cantlie/AFP/Getty Images)
Libya
A Libyan rebel fighter fires his rocket-propelled grenade toward buildings in District Two of Colonel Gaddafi's
home city of Sirte on October 11, 2011 in Libya. (John Cantlie/Getty Images)
Jubilant girls celebrate the liberation of Libya in Green Square on September 13, 2011 in Tripoli, Libya (John Cantlie/Getty Images)
Former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's red-carpeted airport stairs sit abandoned on a highway on October 07, 2011 in Sirte, Libya.
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