Emergence of video showing four men comes as France reels from the identification of two of its nationals partaking in a mass beheading in Syria

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A film released by Islamic State (Isis) shows jihadi fighters burning French passports and calling on others to bring terror to the streets of the European country.

Released by one of Isis’s main media outlets, Al Hayat, the video shows four men who purport to be from France, including three who deliver messages in French to camera.

Burning what appear to be several French passports in a campfire, a masked man can be heard saying: “We disbelieve in you and your passports, and if you come here we will fight you.”

The emergency of the video comes as France has been rocked by the identification of two of their nationals in a mass beheading of Syrian government soldiers filmed in gruesome detail.

Prosecutors have identified Maxime Hauchard, 22 a Muslim convert from northern France and Parisian Michaël Dos Santos, also 22, as being part of a band of more than a dozen Isis militants seen to be killing tied-up government soldiers.

Sitting with a rifle at his shoulder in a wooded area among a crowd of several other armed combatants wearing balaclavas, a man identified as Abu Osama al-Faranci goes on to castigate French Muslims for not emigrating to the Islamic state.

Holding a serrated short sword, a second fighter identified as Abu Maryam Al Faranci says the mujahideen will not hesitate to chop the heads of the “enemies of Islam”. “You will even fear travelling to the market,” he says.

Referring to France’s laws on public dress which make it unlawful to cover one’s face in public, he says: “Just wearing the niqab [face veil] is very difficult.”

Another fighter simply identified as Abu Salman al-Faranci says that he has pledged an oath of allegiance to Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and suggests that those who cannot join the ranks of Isis in Syria or Iraq should “operate within France”.

He adds: “Terrorise them and do not allow them to sleep due to fear and horror.”

“Do whatever you can to humiliate them,” he says, adding that he hoped that the next generation of children who grew up in Islamic State would be raised to fight the west.

This latest video is similar to other propaganda films by British, German, Chechen and Australian jihadis issued in recent months and aimed at recruiting young men and women to join Isis.