Salim Benghalem

Salim Benghalem (July 1980 — November 2017), also known by his nom de guerre Abou Mohamed al-Faransi, was a French jihadist and terrorist who worked with the Islamic State to plan the November 2015 Paris attacks. He was killed in November 2017 near Boukamal in Syria.

He was considered a “figure of French jihadism”, who was “responsible for welcoming French and French-speaking people into the Islamic State”.

Life

Early life and education Benghalem was born in Bourg-la-Reine on 6 July 1980. The fourth in a family of seven children, he grew up in Cachan near Val-de-Marne. At seventeen, he stopped studying work-study sales training, and became involved in drug trafficking and theft.

In an Islamic State propaganda video broadcast on 12 February 2015 and filmed under duress by John Cantlie, who was taken hostage, Salim Benghalem “rejoices” at the attacks committed by the Kouachi and Coulibaly brothers, and also welcomed the terrorist Mohammed Merah, “who did something extraordinary”. Close to Boubaker El Hakim, he was also once suspected of preparing the escape of Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem.

Yemen and Syria In the summer of 2011, he went to Yemen with Chérif Kouachi. He stayed there for a month and was trained by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He then went to Syria in April 2013 and joined the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

He was the deputy of Abu Obeida al-Maghribi and ensured logistics in the Islamic State prison in Aleppo. While he was there, he participated in numerous interrogations, executions, and was also involved in organizing terrorist attacks. In November of the same year, he was injured in the leg and joined the Islamic Police. With his wife and children who joined him in October 2013, Benghalem took up residence in Cheikh Najar, an industrial zone north of Aleppo, but his wife decided to return after a few months. In January 2014, Islamic State fighters, including Benghalem, evacuated Aleppo after a rebel offensive. Benghalem then became involved in Islamic Police operations that were headquartered in al-Bab. According to the DGSI, he revealed himself as a “sadistic torturer" while he was there.

Death Targeted by an international arrest warrant and included on the United States Blacklist for his involvement in Islamic State operations, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison in absentia while in Paris in January 2016. He died after an aerial bombardment by the Syrian Military during the Syrian civil war in November 2017. He had escaped a previous bombardment by the French armed forces in 2015. He died during the Battle of Boukamal.