An apparent Islamic State jihadi’s attempts to record a video in which he pledged allegiance to the terror group did not go according to plan – after he was repeatedly interrupted by a squawking bird.
Footage has emerged of what is thought to be the unidentified militant recording the clip.
The video was shared on Twitter by Dr Elisabeth Kendall, a senior research fellow in Arabic at Pembroke College, Oxford.
She said the clip showed the leader of the Yemen branch of the terror group.
The militant is seen checking a piece of paper, seemingly a script for what he has to say, before his voice is drowned out by the bird.
He stops and tries again, but the bird once more pipes up.
“Heroic bird relentlessly drowns out ISIS-Y’s attempt to renew allegiance to the caliph,” Dr Kendall tweeted.
“Leader’s feeble memory adds to the woes… These bodged ‘takes’ didn’t make it into the official video of this solemn event, released end July.”
In a later tweet she said that the clip was released by al Qaeda’s Hidaya Media.
“#AQAP [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] likely found it when they overran the #ISIS camp in Qayfa #Yemen this summer.
“I’ve traced the original blooper-free ISIS-Y video to 9/2017.”
Al Qaeda and IS were once closely aligned, but the latter distanced itself in the years after the 2003 Iraq War and resulting insurgency.
IS once held swatches of territory in Iraq and Syria, but the militants have lost the vast majority of the territory they once controlled.
