If found guilty, Mohammad Khalifa faces a life sentence. (file)
Washington:
The Justice Department said Saturday that a Canadian jihadist who fought for the ISIS group and narrated violent propaganda videos was detained and charged by the United States.
Mohammed Khalifa, 38 and born in Saudi Arabia, was captured in January 2019 during a shelling by Kurdish-dominated Syrian forces allied with the United States.
A Justice Department statement said he was “recently” handed over to US authorities and charged with conspiring to provide material aid to ISIS in Virginia.
According to the statement, Khalifa left Canada in 2013 to join the ISIS group in Syria, and by the following year had become a key member of its propaganda team due to his fluent English and Arabic.
He reportedly served as a key translator in the propaganda production of ISIS and as an English-speaking narrator on two violent recruitment videos.
The cell was behind a video showing the beheadings of foreigners, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, who were killed in 2014.
He faces a possible life sentence in the United States. According to the media there, Canada also expects to take charge from them.
In an exchange of emails cited in the chargesheet, Khalifa defended the killings of ISIS to which he was linked.
“Mohammed Khalifa not only fought for ISIS on the battlefield in Syria, but he was also the voice behind the violence,” said Raj Parekh, acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
According to the indictment, Caliph’s “primary focus” was to entice ISIS supporters to join ISIS or travel to ISIS-controlled areas to conduct attacks in the West, including the United States.
The jihadist group, classified as a terrorist organization by US officials, is responsible for a wave of deadly attacks in Western countries.
Its emergence prompted intervention by a US-led international military coalition, which succeeded in defeating the self-proclaimed “caliphate”, even though ISIS is still present in several additional countries, notably in Africa and Asia, and According to the US, a threat remains. and European intelligence services.
– ‘Glorious’ killings, brutality –
In a 2019 interview with Canada’s CBC from his Syrian prison, Khalifa showed no remorse for his actions. He said he wanted to return to Canada with his wife and their three children, but on condition that he would not be prosecuted.
Parekh said, “Through his alleged leading role in translating, describing and advancing ISIS’s online propaganda, Khalifa promoted the terrorist group, fueled recruitment efforts around the world, and the horrific killings and indiscriminate brutality of ISIS.” Expanded the reach of videos glorifying you.”
It is the first known indictment of a foreign ISIS fighter in the US since President Joe Biden took office in January.
Two members of the infamous ISIS kidnapping cell called the “Beatles”, Alexandra Cote and El Shafi Elsheikh, are currently in the hands of US officials after relocating to the United States from Iraq nearly a year ago.
The pair are accused of involvement in the murders of Foley and Sotloff, as well as that of relief workers Peter Kasig and Kayla Mueller.
Cote, a former British national whose citizenship was stripped, pleaded guilty in early September to conspiracy to murder four American hostages.
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