Rapper Turned ISIS Fighter Killed in Syria

He is also thought to have produced a video of Jihadi John, whose real name is Mohammed Emwazi, beheading British and USA prisoners, and appeared in a video from November a year ago "in which he appears holding a severed head he claims belongs to a man executed for opposing Isil", the U.S. state department previously said.

A German rapper who joined ISIS in 2012 and was labeled a "global terrorist" has been killed in an airstrike, according to the Pentagon, NBC News reported. It said that Cuspert - who as Deso Dogg rapped "welcome to my world full of hate and blood" in a 2007 music video - was believed to have been radicalized in Germany's Salafist scene and quickly gained popularity as a radical preacher who tried to recruit followers for ISIS. He tried provoking Western Muslims to carry out attacks, Smith added.

Cuspert used the stage name Deso Dogg but ended his rap career in 2010 after converting to Islam.

Like so many of Islamic State's western recruits, Cuspert was simultaneously disaffected and indignant, the survivor of a troubled upbringing and a tumultuous adulthood who saw something in jihad- self redemption that he lacked at home.

The footage is filled with horrific footage of prisoners being beheaded and Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh being burned alive.

In 2014, German officials said, he joined Islamic State fighters and swore allegiance to the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

He also noted that other ISIS jihadists may have been hit.

He went by the name Abu Talha al-Almani after ditching his musical roots to join the terrorist group.

United States officials said that Cuspert was killed in a U.S. airstrike on 16 October, but did not provide further details.