MAINZ, Germany – German rapper Denis Cuspert, better known under his performance name Deso Dogg, was killed in a coalition airstrike in Syria, according to US officials.
Due to his former profession as a musician and artist, Cuspert was one of the main characters in the Islamic State’s (ISIS or ISIL) propaganda war.
After a warrant for his arrest was issued in 2012, Cuspert fled to Egypt and later to the Islamist held regions of Syria and Iraq. In the same year, he joined ISIS and pledged a loyalty oath and took on a role as an active recruiter of militants from Germany.
"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," the United States’ State Department wrote in February.
Kahraman Aristov, a Kurd who lives in Germany and has roots in the former Soviet Union, said: “When I was younger I really liked his music, I was into rap music and Deso Dogg was one of our idols at that time. There was not a single hint of religious fanaticism.”
But in the years 2009 and 2010 Cuspert met with Pierre Vogel, a German preacher who is continuously reported to have ties to radical Islamists and even to ISIS.
After several of these meetings, Cuspert stopped his work as an entertainer and started to produce propaganda videos for different radical organizations in Germany and later worldwide.
At this time he was openly praising Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in several self-made videos.
“It is unbelievable how someone can be brainwashed with such intensity. How can a prominent artist, grown up in a democracy, turn into a monster of evil, holding cut off heads into cameras,” asked Parzhin Qashqai, a 39-year-old Kurdish woman living in Berlin.
Being present on all major frontlines of the Islamic State, Cuspert visited the Kurdish city of Kobani during the siege late last year and earlier this year. Together with other members of ISIS he looted abandoned Kurdish homes and said to his viewers in a video: “The Muslims paid for these things with their blood. This all belongs to the Muslims. From the Muslims to the Muslims. And all others should go to hell, if God is willing.”
Although Cuspert was declared dead several times in the last months and years, it latest reports appear to be credible.
A US official, who spoke to the press under the condition of anonymity, confirmed his death and said that Cuspert “was not considered a high-value target”and that the airstrikes “were not specifically targeting him.”
According to German intelligence, about 700 German nationals have gone to ISIS during the last year to fight alongside. More than 100 German Islamists have died so far and 200 fled back to Germany after they experienced the horrific reality and brutality of the war in the Middle East.
