Denis Cuspert, a former German rapper who performed under the name Deso Dogg, has been named a terrorist by the U.S. State Department due to alleged ties with the extremist group Islamic State.
The State Department says that the 39-year-old joined ISIS, or ISIL, in 2012, reports NBC News. Cuspert, who now calls himself Abu Talha al-Almani, has already appeared in several ISIS videos and pledged allegiance to their leader. In a November video, he appeared to be holding the severed head of a man he says he executed himself.
According to the Washington Times, the State Department believes that Cuspert is being used as a recruiter, specifically to target Germans. The department also considers him the poster child for the type of foreign recruits ISIS is interested in attracting.
“Cuspert is emblematic of the type of foreign recruit ISIL seeks for its ranks — individuals who have engaged in criminal activity in their home countries who then travel to Iraq and Syria to commit far worse crimes against the people of those countries,” the department said in a statement. “Foreign terrorist fighters are reported to have played significant roles in some of ISIL’s most egregious crimes, including the massacres of the Sh’aitat tribe in Syria and the Albu Nimr tribe in Iraq, as well as the almost daily public executions in Raqqa.”
The State Department classification comes after German intelligence did their own report on Cuspert’s activities in September. Officials there are even reportedly looking into possibly charging Cuspert and another German national with war crimes.
screenshot via DasHerzDerNatur YouTube video
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