The Justice Department said on Saturday that a Canadian jihadist who fought for the Islamic State group and narrated violent propaganda videos was detained and charged by the United States.
Mohammed Khalifa, 38, and Saudi Arabia-born, was captured in January 2019 during a gunfight by Kurdish-dominated Syrian forces allied with the US. A Justice Department statement said he was “recently” handed over to US authorities and charged with conspiring to provide material aid to IS in Virginia.
It said he left Canada in 2013 to join the Islamic State group in Syria and by the following year had become a key member of its propaganda team because of his fluent English and Arabic.
Khalifa reportedly served as a key translator in Islamic State’s propaganda output 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. In an exchange of emails cited in the chargesheet, Khalifa defended these killings.
“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 U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, another acronym for the Islamic State group. using said.
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 it,” Parekh said.
It is the first known indictment of a foreign IS fighter in the US since Joe Biden came to power in January.
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