US sentences Islamic State's Saudi-born Canadian terrorist to life imprisonment

Saudi-born Canadian jihadist Mohammed Khalifa, who had confessed to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation, was sentenced to life in prison in the United States.

Mohammed Khalifa belonged to the Islamic State group’s propaganda production unit and reportedly played a key role in narrating violent videos, the Justice Department informed. Khalifa, 39, had left Canada in 2013 to join the IS in Syria and was in the propaganda cell.

Khalifa served as a lead translator in ISIS’s propaganda production and the English-speaking narrator on multiple violent ISIS videos, the US State Department revealed while adding thatthe productions narrated by Khalifa include two of the most “influential and exceptionally violent” ISIS propaganda videos named “Flames of War: Fighting Has Just Begun” in 2014, and “Flames of War II: Until the Final Hour,” distributed in 2017.

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Khalifa was also involved in thebrutal hostage-taking and ransom demand campaign involving journalists and humanitarian aid workers in Syria, the US agency said.

“Khalifa engaged in fighting on behalf of ISIS and attacked an SDF position in Abu Badran, Syria,” the US Justice Department said. Khalifa surrendered to the SDF in 2019 and was taken into custody by the FBI last year.

In December last year, Khalifa pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, resulting in death. The US informed that between August 2014 and February 2015, the Islamic state killed eight American, British and Japanese citizens in Syria as part of the hostage scheme.

(With inputs from Agencies)

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