DUBAI: The Islamic State (IS) militant group praised the gunmen behind this week’s killings at the Paris headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo weekly newspaper as “heroic jihadists”, a monitoring group said yesterday.
The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical Islamist organisations in the media, said IS praised the gunmen in a brief note in its daily audio bulletin, which was distributed on Twitter and jihadi forums on Thursday.
“We start our bulletin with France. Heroic jihadists killed 12 journalists and wounded ten others working in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, and that was support for our master Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him),” according to the audio bulletin.
In France, armed and masked anti-terrorism police swooped on woodland villages northeast of Paris in a manhunt for two brothers suspected of carrying out Wednesday’s attack on Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper which had published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as well as other religious and political figures.
Ten journalists and two police officers were killed in the attack, which has raised questions of security in the Western world and beyond.
Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) to be against Islam.
Islamic State is a powerful militant group which has captured broad swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory.
US teen charged with ‘trying to join IS’
A US teen arrested at a Chicago airport while allegedly trying to join up with Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, has been formally charged, federal prosecutors said yesterday.
Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, faces one count of “attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization,” which carries a maximum penalty of up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000.
No date has yet been set for Khan’s next court appearance, according to the statement from the Justice Department, which added that the investigation is continuing.
The Illinois teenager was arrested October 4 at Chicago’s O’Hare airport with a roundtrip ticket to Istanbul.
Law enforcement agents who searched Khan’s suburban Chicago home said they had found multiple handwritten letters by Khan and others. The letters expressed support for the IS group and made reference to jihad, authorities said.
The Central Intelligence Agency estimated last year there were around 15,000 foreigners fighting with the Islamic State and other hardcore militant groups.
Experts say most come from Muslim countries, but there are also hundreds from Europe or the United States.
Officials worry some will return battle-hardened and ready to launch attacks in their home countries.
The swelling ranks of homegrown militants in Europe and the United States pose a mounting problem for governments, even as Western security services expand their policing powers, share intelligence and embrace far-reaching electronic surveillance, experts and officials say.
“The threat these individuals pose to Americans here at home is being fueled by the conflict in Syria and Iraq and is proving particularly difficult to disrupt,” Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the US National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), told lawmakers last year.Agencies
