Video shows gunman’s allegiance to Islamic State
Print Edition
ONE of three gunmen behind the worst attacks in France for decades appeared in a video released online yesterday, declaring his allegiance to the Islamic State group and urging French Muslims to follow his example.
In the video apparently intended for release after his actions, Amedy Coulibaly, who staged the attack on a Jewish deli, said the planned assaults on a satirical journal and a Jewish target were justified by French military interventions overseas.
A French anti-terrorist police source said there was no doubt it was Coulibaly in the French-language recording.
Twenty people, including the attackers, were killed in three days of violence that began with an attack on the Charlie Hebdo weekly last Wednesday and ended with Friday’s dual sieges at a print works outside Paris and a kosher supermarket in the city.
French security forces killed Coulibaly, 32, on Friday after he planted explosives at the Paris deli in a siege that claimed the lives of four hostages. They also shot dead two brothers behind the Hebdo killings, Said and Cherif Kouachi, after they took refuge in the print works.
The Kouachi brothers said they were aligned to al-Qaida.
Coulibaly also called BFM-TV on Friday to claim allegiance to Islamic State, saying he wanted to defend Palestinians and target Jews. In that call he said he had jointly planned the attacks with the Kouachi brothers. Police confirmed they were all members of the same Islamist cell in Paris.
The video showed a man resembling Coulibaly doing physical training and images of an arsenal of weapons and ammunition on the wooden floor of an apartment. He was shown variously in white robes, sitting with a gun at his side, and in combat outfit.
“I pledged allegiance to the Caliph as soon as the caliphate was declared,” he says, referring to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose group is an anti-government paramilitary force in both Iraq and Syria that has a growing network of followers elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
