Ukraine in Arabic | French IS militants urge to join them
KYIV/Ukraine in Arabic/ In a recent video released by ISIL militants, three Frenchmen burn their passports and call on Muslim French citizens to join the Takfiri group and kill “nonbelievers.”
In the most recent propaganda video by the ISIL terrorist group, one of the three ISIL militants calls on Muslims living in France to fight unbelievers at home if they are not able to travel to Iraq or Syria to join the group.
The seven-minute film, released on Wednesday by Al Hayat Media Center, an affiliate of the Islamic State, also shows what appear to be French jihadi fighters burning their French passports. The video appears to be part of an intensifying propaganda effort by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, to use foreign fighters to recruit members and to encourage the spread of violence.
The video was publicized by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist groups’ communications.
The head prosecutor in Paris said Monday that a Frenchman, Maxime Hauchard, right, had been identified in the Islamic State video that announced the beheading of Peter Kassig.
The release of the video came after the French authorities identified two citizens, Michaël Dos Santos and Maxime Hauchard, as recruits who had appeared with their faces uncovered in the prologue of a gruesome video released last Sunday showing the beheaded American aid worker, Peter Kassig.
In the past, the Islamic State has sought to conceal the identity of its members, who are often shown with their faces covered. Its increasing use of foreign fighters in its propaganda messages seems calculated to appeal to disenchanted youth in Europe. Analysts say that some young people are drawn to the Islamic State through a mix of adolescent rebelliousness and the group’s slickly produced recruitment videos.
In the new propaganda video, several men who appear to be French are shown with their faces visible, tossing their passports into a bonfire. “There has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone,” says one masked man, speaking in French. “You have oppressed us, fought our religion, and insulted our prophet. And today, we disbelieve in you and your passport and if you come here we will fight you.” The video has both English and Arabic subtitles.
France has been shaken by the revelation that Mr. Dos Santos and Mr. Hauchard come from non-Muslim families and appeared to have joined the Islamic State on their own initiative, freely traveling to Syria. Mr. Dos Santos, 22, the Roman Catholic son of Portuguese immigrants, lived in a working class area east of Paris before becoming an Islamic State recruit.
Mr. Hauchard, 22, who grew up in a village in Normandy, comes from a middle-class family and converted to Islam at age 17, under the influence of Jihadi websites.
More than 1,000 French citizens have left or plan to leave to join the ranks of jihadist groups in Syria or Iraq, according to the French Ministry of the Interior. Experts in Islamic radicalism say that a growing minority of them include disenchanted youth from non-Muslim families.
France is participating with the United States in airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq, and has been singled out by the Islamic State as one of its key enemies in the West. The French government recently introduced a law preventing those suspected of trying to join jihadist groups from leaving the country.
