The rapper, Denis Cuspert, known as “Deso Dogg” has been reportedly killed during by a U.S. Airstrike.
Denis Cuspert joined the Islamic State in 2012 and has appeared in “numerous videos on its behalf,” including one from November 2014 after a beheading, according to the State Department announcement of the designation.
The Berlin, Germany-born Cuspert had been convicted of unspecified crimes in his home country before popping up on the Syrian battlefield with the nom de guerre Abu Talha al Almani, meaning “Abu Talha the German.” Before his conversion to Islam, according to news reports, Cuspert was active in Berlin’s hip-hop scene, rapping under the stage name “Deso Dogg.”
The State Department said Cuspert had sworn an oath to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, served as “a willing pitchman” for atrocities and was a recruiter with special emphasis on finding German speakers to add to the group.
According to CNN, A message posted on the Facebook page of a Raqqa resident on October 17 claimed Cuspert was killed in a pickup truck the day before by missiles fired by two coalition planes near a gas station in Hunaida on the road between Raqqa and al-Tabqa, according to Florian Flade, a German terrorism expert who has tracked Cuspert.
“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 State Department announcement said after naming him a specially designated global terrorist in 2012.