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Video footage has recently emerged taken by journalist James Longman advising 'rebels' in Syria that the ISIS logo on their uniforms will be misunderstood by Western audiences. Longman, who is ABC News' Chief International Correspondent, demonstrates a trend of American journalists going to war zones to essentially coach combatants on how to better present themselves to the outside world. Mainstream media has for many years pushed the myth of "moderate rebels" in Syria seeking to topple Assad, which they finally did this month.

One of the militants, who might be a member of the US-designated terror group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or possibly another hardline Islamist faction, attempts to claim to the US journalist that the emblem does not represent ISIS. Still, the man wearing the ISIS patch seems to take the hint and dutifully removes it for the camera. They swear to ABC's Longman that they are not Daesh (or ISIS), even while openly sporting its symbols.

Having examined the disturbing video, Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada - who speaks Arabic - has issued the following reaction: "I've seen this video circulating today, along with the claim that James Longman told the fighter to remove the ISIS patch. He does not do that in this video clip. But it's not much of a 'confrontation' either. And however Longman intended it, the fighters appear to interpret his comments as friendly advice on how to present themselves and in fact remove the patch. Understandable that this is reminding people of how Western media colluded in the rebranding of the Azov Battallion in Ukraine that they had been accurately describing as hardcore Nazis just months earlier." Watch:

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