ISIS jihadist who claimed Paris attacks identified

[Nevski]

French terrorist who made audio recording of ISIS taking responsibility for bloody attacks was recently released from jail.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203524

A French jihadist named Fabien Clain made the audio recording of the Islamic State (ISIS) group statement claiming the Paris attacks which was published online, a source close to the investigation told AFP.

The 35-year-old is a veteran of radical Islamist networks in the French city of Toulouse and was close to Mohamed Merah, who shot dead three soldiers in southern France in 2012 before murdering three Jewish children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse more than a week later.

Clain was sentenced to five years in prison in 2009 for recruiting jihadists, after which he left for Syria.

In April 2015 the daily Le Monde revealed he was a main suspect in a foiled attack on a church uncovered when assailant Algerian IT student Sid Ahmed Ghlam shot himself in the leg by accident.

In the Paris attacks, ISIS terrorists conducted six coordinated shooting and suicide bombing attacks throughout the capital city, leaving at least 129 murdered.

ISIS jihadists operating out of Iraq and Syria released a statement claiming responsibility for the coordinated attacks. The group said "eight brothers wearing explosive belts and carrying assault rifles" conducted a "blessed attack on... Crusader France."

It said the targets of Friday's attacks "were carefully chosen." The statement also made reference to French air strikes on ISIS in Syria, saying France was guilty of "striking Muslims in the caliphate with their aircraft" and threatened further attacks "as long as it continues its Crusader campaign."

Seven jihadists blew themselves up or were killed by security forces, and police are hunting for an eighth suspect.

The mastermind behind the attacks was named Monday as Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, of Belgium. Abaaoud's family is from Morocco, but he hails from the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, which has a high concentration of Muslim immigrants.

He is a notorious ISIS terrorist who spent time in Syria and was connected to a thwarted attack in August against a train from Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels, in which a terrorist opened fire before passengers managed to overpower him.

Another piece of evidence strengthening the Syrian connection in the attack was revealed on Monday, when it was announced that one of the suicide bombers had gone to Syria two years ago after being radicalized in France.