Son of Hollywood director now al Qaeda spokesman

Ward Carroll
Mar 31, 2018 2:43 AM PDT
1 minute read
Son of Hollywood director now al Qaeda spokesman


By all accounts Lucas Kinney was born and raised into a life of western privilege.  His dad, Patrick Kinney, was an assistant director during the filming of blockbusters like "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Braveheart." Lucas' parents got divorced when he was in the British equivalent of elementary school, and his stepdad took his mom and him to places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt where he went to the best private schools and got into theater and music.

Lucas returned to England to attend Leeds University but dropped out after a year and went to Vienna where, according to his mother, he was radicalized into Islamic extremism. Now he's featured as an al Qaeda spokesman in an anti-ISIS video shot in Syria.

In the video Kinney demonstrates outrage at atrocities committed by ISIS fighters as well as an impressive command of Islamic terms. What makes the video even more amazing is that a few years ago he was a devout Catholic who was seriously thinking about becoming a priest.

Now Kinney's mom, Deborah Phipps, is afraid her son is going to be killed by a drone strike ordered by British Prime Minister David Cameron. And in what could be the most warped parental matrix of all times, she told the Daily Mail, "I'm glad he's associated with al Qaeda rather than [ISIS], but obviously I worry."

Yeah, al Qaeda is a parent's preference over ISIS -- sort of like preferring that a kid smokes crack instead of shooting heroin.

Watch the video:

Now: Fast-mover hit by enemy ground fire over Afghanistan

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