![Abu Maryam al-Faransi warns: "This is a message to all the enemies of Islam and specifically France. The mujahedin [militants] around the world will not hesitate to cut off your heads."](https://gdb.rferl.org/c11cfa92-0471-4134-b9e3-ff1979426b0c_cx8_cy5_cw82_w250_r1_s.png)
The Islamic State (IS) group's media wing, Al-Hayat, has released a new video calling on French Muslims to join Islamic State and go to Syria to fight, or if that's not possible to carry out terrorist attacks in France.
"Even poison is available, so poison the water and food of at least one of the enemies of Allah," one French militant says in the video.
The video -- titled What Are You Waiting For? -- is in French with Arabic and English subtitles. It's opening scenes show a group of French militants burning their passports to symbolize their rejection of the French government.
"As you have disbelieved in the Taghut [someone who worships anything except Allah], democracy, and man-made laws through your Hijra, today you disbelieve in these Tawagheet ['Taghut' leaders, i.e. the governments of the countries from which the militants have come] and their laws that they forced on us and these passports that they forced us to use," the French militant speaking in the video says.
The militant accuses the French government of oppressing Muslims and insulting the Prophet Muhammad. "And today, we disbelieve in you and your passports, and if you come here we will fight you," the militant adds.
The video also includes an address by another French militant identified as Abu Osama al-Faransi ("the Frenchman"), who calls on French Muslims who are still in France to come to Syria. "What are you waiting for? Why do you not perform Hijra [emigrate to Syria]," he asks.
Abu Osama frames the situation as a war between Muslims and the West, accusing Muslims who stay in France of strengthening that country's economy and paying taxes, "which they use to fight our sisters, our women and our children."
A second militant, Abu Maryam al-Faransi, offers a more threatening message. "This is a message to all the enemies of Islam and specifically France. The mujahedin [militants] around the world will not hesitate to cut off your heads," he warns.
A third militant, Abu Salman, calls on French Muslims who are not able to come to Syria to pledge allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in France and carry out terror attacks there. "Operate within France. Terrorize them and do not allow them to sleep due to fear and horror. There are weapons and cars available and targets ready to be hit," he says, adding that French Muslims could also use poison as weapon.
"Kill them and spit in their faces and run them over with your cars," he adds.
Abu Salman goes on to say that he and his fellow French militants have come to Syria with their families and children.
The release of the video on November 19 comes as the French government announced that a second French national appearing in an IS beheading video had been identified as 22-year-old Michael Dos Santos.
Both of the Frenchmen appearing in that video, which also showed the severed head of American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, were recent converts to Islam. Dos Santos was the Roman Catholic son of Portuguese immigrants and lived in an eastern Paris suburb before going to Syria, the French authorities said.
The first Frenchman identified as participating in the beheading video was named as Maxime Hauchard, a convert from Normandy.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that almost 50 French citizens had died in Syria. "Sadly, we are not surprised to learn that French citizens or residents of France are found at the heart of these cells and taking part in this barbarity," he said, according to the BBC.
Over 1,000 French citizens are thought to have gone to Syria.
-- Joanna Paraszczuk