IS releases chilling video purportedly of Paris attackers
25 Jan 2016
A video published on Sunday by the media centre of Islamic State purported to show images and last statements of nine of the people who took part in the Paris attacks that killed 130 people on 13 November. The clip finishes with a chilling threat from the terrorist group, saying they will carry out their next attack in the UK in retaliation for Britain's airstrikes campaign in Syria.
The video could not be independently verified. It showed the men delivering anti-Western diatribes and concluded with an apparent threat to attack Britain. Footage of London and the House of Commons debate on bombing ISIS targets in Syria is featured in the disturbing the video
The French foreign ministry declined to comment on the video. There was no immediate comment from the prime minister's office or the British interior ministry.
The video was uploaded to Islamic State's official Telegram channel and showed some of the attackers wearing camouflage fatigues in a desert location, before the time of the Paris attacks. Several of them were shown beheading hostages of the ultra-hardline militant group, a tactic it has frequently used.
''These are the last messages of the nine lions of the caliphate who were mobilised from their lairs to make a whole country, France, get down on its knees,'' a narrator in the video said.
On the night of 13 November, nine men, split into three groups, attacked a sports stadium, a string of cafes and a concert hall. An arrest warrant has been issued for another man, Salah Abdeslam, who fled to Belgium the following day.
The attackers are identified in the video by aliases referring to their nationalities - three French, four Belgian and two Iraqis, referred to as Ali al-Iraqi and Ukashah al-Iraqi.
The two could be the suicide bombers who tried to attack the Stade de France stadium. They carried Syrian passports assumed to be forged and could not be formally identified. Seven other dead attackers have already been identified.
The video showed footage of British Prime Minister David Cameron expressing solidarity with the French people after the attacks, and concluded by flashing a slogan on the screen saying: ''Whoever stands in the ranks of kafir (infidels) will be a target for our swords.''
The footage shows images of the Paris strike claimed by Islamic State as well as security operations by French special forces during the onslaught.
It was not clear why the group released the video more than two months after the bloodshed.
French President Francois Hollande has said that the Paris attacks were planned in Syria but prepared and organised in Belgium.
Belgian authorities have formally charged 10 people in the case, including a number from the troubled Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek where a number of extremists have stayed over the last two decades.
Four suspects remain at large, including Salah Abdeslam who allegedly drove suicide bombers to the French national stadium outside Paris, as well as Mohamed Abrini, suspected of having helped scout out the attack sites. Both are from Molenbeek.
