Islamic State (Isis) has released a graphic propaganda video appearing to show the Paris attackers carrying out brutal beheadings. The video published on Sunday (24 January) carries the statements of nine of the perpetrators of the Paris attacks that killed 130 people on 13 November. The video also threatens attacks on the UK.
The video was uploaded to an IS (Daesh) Telegram channel. Flashpoint Global Partners, a group monitoring jihadist activity reports that stills of the video show nine men resembling the suspects in the Paris attacks, according to Reuters. A Site analyst added that four of the attackers are seen in a desert location dressed in camouflage fatigues, beheading and shooting prisoners.
The video is believed to have been filmed in Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS, before the Paris attacks. The video also names locations that were attacked on 13 November.
One of the images shows a man resembling Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the attacks. Another is Bilal Hadfi, who became known as the baby-faced terrorist.
The video features numerous graphic beheadings as well as lengthy speeches from each of the militants. Abaaoud is the first to speak, declaring IS are masters not slaves before pledging to carry out terror attacks.
We will make you taste terror, and you will taste it in your very stronghold. By Allah, we will make rivers out of your blood on this day. We will fight you to the last man among us and there is nothing between us and you but the edge of the sword, said Abaaoud.
A narrator in the video says: 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.
The video finishes with the jihadi group issuing a threat to carry out their next terror attack in the UK in reaction to Britains decision to carry out air strikes in Syria.
In the footage, the militants speak French and Arabic, and threaten coalition countries, including Britain. The video shows a picture of Prime Minister David Cameron accompanied by the words in English: Whoever stands in the ranks of kufr (unbelievers) will be a target for our swords.
The French Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the video. There was no immediate comment from the British Prime Ministers office or the Interior Ministry. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage.
Paris attacks
On November 13, nine attackers bombers unleashed a wave of atrocities in Paris on six sites, including the Stade de France and the Bataclan theatre. A total of 130 people died and hundreds more were injured in the deadliest attack on French soil since the Second World War.
Seven of the jihadists died during the attacks and in raids in the days after. Chakib Akrouh and Abaaoud died in a police raid on a flat in the Saint-Denis commune of Paris. Suspects Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini have evaded the police.
French police missed opportunities to arrest Abdeslam three times after stopping the getaway car on its way back to Belgium. As Abdeslam was not at that time registered as a suspect in the attacks, they allowed him to leave.
A vehicle containing his fingerprints was found abandoned near the Bataclan theatre. Salahs brother Brahim was killed in the attacks, detonating a suicide vest outside a busy cafe near the Bataclan theatre.
Five people with links to the Paris attacks were arrested in Germany, near Aachen, close to the border with Belgium and the Netherlands. Officials investigating the Paris attacks believe the terror network which orchestrated the massacre had links to people in the UK.