A video apparently showing the Paris kosher market gunman pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and defending the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo surfaced on Sunday.
The video was posted online on Sunday by an “ISIS-linked Twitter account,” according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a terrorism monitoring organization, which was among the first to spot the video.
The IS released a video of Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly pledging to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and displaying his weapons. pic.twitter.com/dpoZLz4Zd1
— SITE Intel Group (@siteintelgroup) January 11, 2015
In the video a man who resembles Amedy Coulibaly can be seen with a gun, giving speeches in fluent French and halting Arabic in front of an ISIS flag.
“What we are doing is completely legitimate, given what they are doing,” the man tells the camera. “You cannot attack and not expect retribution so you are playing the victim as if you don’t understand what’s happening.”
French authorities have identified Coulibaly as the gunman who took several people hostage in a kosher market in eastern Paris on Friday. Four people died during the hostage standoff.
It’s still unconfirmed that the man in the video is in fact Coulibaly, but SITE claims to have verified it, and an unnamed associate of Coulibaly’s told The Associated Press that the man is indeed him.
Coulibaly is believed to be connected to Said and Cherif Kouachi, who French authorities identified as the gunmen who raided the offices of Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday in Paris killing 12 people. Coulibaly is suspected of having killed a policewoman in the Paris suburb of Mountrouge on Thursday. Four other people were killed at the grocery market on Thursday before Coulibaly was killed during a police raid.
The video is composed of several takes with the man wearing different outfits and appearing in different settings.
Here is Coulibaly's short-barrel assault rifle. Anyone knows the exact make? pic.twitter.com/pwbKrO5f9m
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) January 11, 2015
It is unclear when the video was done. At one point, the man says Charlie Hebdo will be attacked “tomorrow” and that he and the brothers Kouachi were coordinating operations.
The three gunmen were longtime acquaintances, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
A fourth suspect named by French authorities, Hayat Boumeddiene, is still wanted by authorities, and is reported to have left France before the attacks even began.
In the last few days, more evidence has surfaced suggesting that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or (AQAP) may have been involved in the attacks.