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Fabien Clain, French jihadist and 'voice of Paris attacks', reported killed in Syria

French jihadist Fabien Clain
French jihadist Fabien Clain, who voiced a recording that claimed the 2015 Paris attacks for the Islamic State group, has been reported killed in Syria.

Security sources told French media an air strike on Wednesday killed Clain in Baghuz, the last pocket held by IS.

The US-led coalition fighting IS said it was trying to verify the reports.

Clain became known as the French voice of IS after the 2015 attacks that left 130 people dead.


What is known about Wednesday's air strike?


It was carried out overnight by the US-led coalition, security sources told French media.

They said that Clain's brother and fellow jihadist, Jean-Michel, were seriously wounded in the strike.

French Defence Minister Florence Parly later tweeted (in French), that it was "possible" that Fabien Clain was killed.

Fabien Clain is believed to have gone to Syria in 2015.

Nearly 2,000 French citizens have fought for IS in Syria and Iraq since 2014, the French government believes.

How close is the capture of Baghuz?


About 300 IS fighters are thought to be holed up in and around the village on the border with Iraq.

In recent days, civilians have been evacuated from the village.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance has said it is waiting for their removal before launching an offensive against militants "entrenched inside".

Those removed are being screened then taken to camps, the SDF say.




The fall of Baghuz is significant - but experts have warned the group's ideological pull endures.

At its height, five years ago, IS controlled 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory stretching from western Syria to eastern Iraq.

Source: BBC News, February 21, 2019

Top French jihadist believed killed in Syria


2015 Paris attacksFabien Clain spoke in IS recording claiming responsibility for 2015 Paris attacks; sources say he was killed in terror group’s last stronghold

PARIS, France — A top French Islamic State jihadist who became notorious after voicing an audio recording claiming responsibility for the November 2015 attacks in Paris has been killed in an overnight airstrike, security sources told AFP.

Fabien Clain, who is believed to have gone to Syria in March 2015, was killed in the terror group’s last Syrian redoubt of Baghouz, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

Clain is a seasoned jihadist, who was found guilty of helping send extremists to fight US forces in Iraq in 2009 before leaving himself to live in Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate six years later.

In his video after the Paris attacks, Clain can be heard announcing that “eight brothers wearing explosive belts and carrying assault rifles” had conducted a “blessed attack on… Crusader France.”

The chilling propaganda recording warned that the Paris 2015 jihadist rampage was just “the beginning of the storm.”

The IS gunmen slaughtered 129 people in coordinated attacks at restaurants and bars around Paris, the Bataclan concert hall and the national stadium in an atrocity that stunned the world.

His brother Jean-Michel, also a jihadist, was wounded in the same raid that killed Fabien in Baghouz, where the last IS fighters are holding out against US-backed Syrian forces, the sources said.

There was no immediate confirmation of the report from the French defense or foreign ministries.

Fabien, also known as Brother Omar, or Abu Adam Al-Faransi, converted to Islam in the 1990s and is thought to be in his early 40s.

He was originally from the French Indian Ocean island of La Réunion, but later moved to mainland France.

He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2009 for organizing a network responsible for sending recruits to fight US soldiers in Iraq.

At the time, he and brother Jean-Michel were active in a radical Islamist network, known as the Artigat cell, in the Toulouse area of southwest France.

They are believed to have been radicalized by a Frenchman of Syrian origin, Olivier Corel, dubbed the “white imam.”


Mosul, Iraq, Feb. 2016: Islamic State beheads 15-year-old boy for listening to “Western music."Photo: Baghdad (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Mosul, Iraq, February 2016. The Islamic State (IS) group has reportedly beheaded a 15-year-old boy for listening to Western pop music and shot dead two others for missing Friday prayers, as part of a wider crackdown in the group's stronghold of Mosul in northern Iraq. According to local sources, reported by Kurdish media, the teenager named Ayham Hussein was caught during a patrol by Isis fighters, listening to Western music from his CD player in his father's grocery store, in the west of the city.  Brought before a Sharia court, the boy was sentenced to death by beheading, which took place in a public square. His body was handed to his parents last Tuesday for burial. Separately, two young men were arrested last week for failing to attend Friday prayers at the main mosque in Mosul. Both were shot dead outside the same mosque on Sunday. The execution took place after a member of the Sharia Court read a statement vowing anyone who misses the prayers at the mosque to face the “same punishment." In late January, a 14-year-old was reportedly beheaded on similar charges. A witness said the boy’s parents were "forced to witness the beheading of their own son”. Reports from Mosul also indicate that four women victims of rape were stoned to death for adultery. (Read more).

Source: Agence France-Presse, February 21, 2019


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