Young boy shown killing Israeli in new Islamic State video is French

A man and young boy shown killing a Palestinian hostage in the latest Islamic State video are French citizens, according to a French official. The unidentified official, who has close ties to intelligence services, also says authorities are investigating whether the man in the video has links to the family of the Islamic extremist who attacked a Jewish school and paratroopers in southern France in 2012. The man in the video, released late Tuesday, speaks with a southern French accent. The video shows the young boy fatally shooting Muhammad Musallam, an Israeli Arab accused by the group of having signed up as a jihadi to spy for Israel’s intelligence service.

I tell my father and my son: Repent to God. I say to the spies who spy on Islamic State: You will not be successful, they will expose you

Muhammad Musallam, Islamic State hostage

The video, published by the group’s Furqan media outlet, showed Musallam, 19, sitting in a room wearing an orange jumpsuit, talking about how he had been recruited and trained by Mossad. He said his father and elder brother had encouraged him. Israel and his family denied that he was an Israeli spy. An Israeli security official had said Musallam went to Syria to fight for Islamic State in October last year.

Mohammad was told by them to say about himself that he works for the Israelis. [Islamic State militants] took him as a victim, only to show the world, so the world would be afraid of them.

Said Musallam, father of Muhammad Musallam

Middle East ISIS teen