Mohammed Khalifa
Mohammed Khalifa is a Canadian citizen who traveled to Daesh occupied territory, where he narrated Daesh war videos.
Observers had long speculated that two important Daesh war videos, Flames of War and Flames of War 2, were narrated by a Canadian. Khalifa was captured in January 2019, and acknowledged he was the narrator.
The Flames of War was described as one of the most influential Daesh war videos. It is 55 minutes long, much of the footage filmed with a GoPro style body-camera, worn by a fighter, who first digs in, then charges Syrian soldiers. Other footage records prisoners first being made to dig their own graves, then showing their brutal executions.
The New York Times hired three voice recognition experts, who had served as expert witnesses, Catalin Grigoras, Jeff M. Smith and Robert C. Maher, who all agreed recordings made when Rukmini Callimachi interviewed him matched the narration of the videos.
According to Charlie Winter, a counter-terrorism specialist from the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, “His voice is the most recognizable English-speaking voice to have ever appeared in Islamic State propaganda.”
Winter called The Flames of War
According to Amarnath Amarasingam, of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, ''“He is a symbol — the voice coming out of ISIS, speaking to the English-speaking world, for the better part of the last four to five years.”
