The Islamic State (IS) group has said that two Frenchmen were behind a pair of suicide bombings that targeted Sunni and Shiite militias in western Iraq, the jihadist website monitoring group SITE said Friday.
Furat Province, a division of the IS group in western Iraq, made the announcement on jihadist forums and Twitter, said SITE. It named the bombers as Abu Maryam al Faransi and Abu Abdul Aziz al Faransi – “al-Faransi” signifying a person from France in Arabic.
The IS group, which does not specify when the bombings were carried out, said that “dozens of enemies were killed and wounded” in the two attacks near the city of Haditha, about 240 km northwest of Baghdad.
“Two knights of the Islamic state” detonated two trucks “packed with tons of explosives” in the attacks, said the militants.
“Brother Abu Maryam al Faransi targeted a headquarters” and “Abu Abdul Aziz al Faransi (…) followed him with a second truck, to target barracks of the apostates,” said the forum post quoted by SITE, which also carried photographs of the two men.
According to the UN, some 25,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 nations have joined the Islamic State and other jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria.
Earlier this month, a source close to a French anti-terrorism agency told AFP that more than 100 people who had left France to wage jihad in Iraq and Syria had been killed while fighting alongside the IS group so far.
According to the source, around 800 French nationals have headed to Syria and Iraq to fight for the IS group, including about 450 who are still there and 260 who have already left the region.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
