ISIS Video Appears to Show Paris Assailants Earlier in Syria and Iraq
Source: New York Times
PARIS The Islamic State released a video on Sunday apparently showing footage of the men who carried out the November attacks in Paris while they were in Syria and Iraq, where they are pictured carrying out executions, including beheadings.
If the identities of the men in the video are confirmed, it would be the first evidence that the group that killed 130 people in coordinated attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 had been sent entirely from the Islamic States base in Syria.
The video appears to make clear that the Paris attacks were not just inspired by the Islamic State, but that the group itself was attacking on European soil. It also aims to show that the assailants some of whom had European passports had been carrying out atrocities in the groups name long before their return to Europe.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, began teasing the release last week in the latest issue of Dabiq, its monthly magazine, where a still image of the video appeared. Several of the assailants pictured in Syria or Iraq are seen wearing what appear to be lapel microphones suggesting that they were recording themselves. The footage shows one of the attackers beheading a victim and another shooting a captive.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/25/world/middleeast/isis-video-paris-attacks.html
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(2,103 posts)Islamic State is actively focusing its attention on conducting large-scale attacks in Europe similar to those last year in Paris, the head of the EUs law enforcement agency has said.
Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol, the Hague-based organisation that coordinates EU policing efforts over terrorism and organised crime, said Isis had developed a new combat-style capability to carry out a campaign of large-scale terrorist attacks on a global stage, with a particular focus in Europe.
His comments, at a meeting of interior ministers in Amsterdam, came as Frances interior minister said Islamist terrorists had planned to attack another concert in Paris and carry out a mass killing in the streets of the capital.
Bernard Cazeneuve was defending the governments decision to maintain a state of emergency imposed after the shootings and bombings across Paris on 13 November, which left 130 people dead, including 89 at the Bataclan concert hall. Isis claimed responsibility.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/25/french-police-foiled-paris-terror-attack-bernard-cazeneuve