Boy and man in latest Islamic State video identified as French citizens
A man and a boy featured in a chilling Islamic State (IS) propaganda video showing the killing of a Palestinian have been identified as French citizens, and investigators are probing whether the man is related to an extremist who attacked a Jewish school in France in 2012, an official said.
The official, who has close ties to intelligence services but was not authorised to speak about the inquiry, also said on Wednesday that another French fighter whose death in a suicide bombing was announced this week by Islamic State was a young teen.
The man in the video, released late on Tuesday, speaks with a southern French accent and looks like the step-brother of Mohammed Merah, who killed seven people in attacks on a Jewish school and paratroopers in the south of France beginning on March 11, 2012 - exactly three years ago. In the video, the man praises attacks on Jews "in your own stronghold in France" as he and the boy stand behind the man about to be killed.
In addition to the 2012 killings in Toulouse, Jews in a kosher supermarket were among the targets of three days of terror that took place in Paris this year that left 20 people dead, including the three gunmen.
"Here are the young lions of the caliphate," the man says in the video. Soon afterward, the boy is shown shooting the man in the head.
The French official with intelligence ties also confirmed the nationality of a French fighter whose death was announced this week by Islamic State. The group said Abu Ali al-Firansi died in a suicide bombing in Tikrit. The French official described him as a young teenager.
About 1,400 people have left France to join extremists in Syria and Iraq, and many have returned. Security officials fear some will arrive with honed skills as fighters, and with passports that allow free travel.
"Nearly 90 French citizens have died there, weapons in hand to fight against our values," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told France's iTele station in an interview on Sunday.
