ISIS Video Appears To Show Paris Assailants Earlier In Syria And Iraq

The New York Times’s terrorism correspondent, Rukmini Callimachi, explains the latest ISIS video, which makes it clear that the Paris attacks were carried out by core members of the terrorist group.

PARIS — The Islamic State released a video on Sunday apparently showing footage of the men who carried out the November attacks in Paris while they were in Syria and Iraq, where they are pictured carrying out executions, including beheadings.

If the identities of all of the men in the video are confirmed, it would be the first evidence that the group that killed 130 people in coordinated attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 had been sent from the Islamic State’s base in Syria.

The video makes it clear that the Paris attacks were not just inspired by the Islamic State, but rather carried out by core members of the terrorist group, who had been trained and vetted in Syria before being tapped to carry out attacks on European soil. It also aims to show that the assailants — nearly all of whom had European passports — had been carrying out atrocities in the group’s name long before their return to Europe.

It is unclear why it took the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, more than two months to release the video, which also includes numerous images of the Paris attacks. Under the headline “Target Area: Paris,” it shows frantic televised scenes of soccer players and fans reacting to explosions at the Stade du France, and chaos on the streets near the Bataclan and other venues where the mass shootings took place.