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Frenchman named in Isis beheadings video told TV of caliphate hopes
Source: The Guardian
Frenchman named in Isis beheadings video told TV of caliphate hopes
Anne Penketh in Paris
The Guardian, Monday 17 November 2014 16.32 GMT
Maxime Hauchard, the Frenchman identified as a jihadi probably involved in the beheadings of an American and Syrian captives, is a 22-year-old from Normandy who converted to Islam at 17.
Hauchard appeared in the Islamic State (Isis) video which on Sunday showed the killings of 18 Syrian captives and American aid worker Peter Kassig. In the video he is standing in a lineup of jihadis and is not masked. Hauchard, who took on the nom de guerre Abu Abdallah el-Faransi, reflecting his French citizenship, was recognised by French writer and journalist David Thomson who tweeted a picture of him.
Hauchard is from Le Bosc-Roger-en-Roumois, which has a population of 3,250. He has never sought to conceal his affiliation with Islamist fighters, and has posted photos on social media of himself carrying weapons. In July he gave an interview to BFMTV in which he described how he became interested in Islam via the internet. He travelled to Syria in August last year to help create a caliphate. He said he had travelled alone and without assistance.
Dressed in black, Hauchard described the month-long training in Syria as “not a holiday, but like a holiday”. He said there were more French nationalists at the Isis headquarters in Raqqa, but the group there was mostly made up of Arabs, including Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians, Moroccans and Saudis.
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Anne Penketh in Paris
The Guardian, Monday 17 November 2014 16.32 GMT
Maxime Hauchard, the Frenchman identified as a jihadi probably involved in the beheadings of an American and Syrian captives, is a 22-year-old from Normandy who converted to Islam at 17.
Hauchard appeared in the Islamic State (Isis) video which on Sunday showed the killings of 18 Syrian captives and American aid worker Peter Kassig. In the video he is standing in a lineup of jihadis and is not masked. Hauchard, who took on the nom de guerre Abu Abdallah el-Faransi, reflecting his French citizenship, was recognised by French writer and journalist David Thomson who tweeted a picture of him.
Hauchard is from Le Bosc-Roger-en-Roumois, which has a population of 3,250. He has never sought to conceal his affiliation with Islamist fighters, and has posted photos on social media of himself carrying weapons. In July he gave an interview to BFMTV in which he described how he became interested in Islam via the internet. He travelled to Syria in August last year to help create a caliphate. He said he had travelled alone and without assistance.
Dressed in black, Hauchard described the month-long training in Syria as “not a holiday, but like a holiday”. He said there were more French nationalists at the Isis headquarters in Raqqa, but the group there was mostly made up of Arabs, including Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians, Moroccans and Saudis.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/17/islamic-state-isis-maxime-hauchard-beheadings-video-france