‘Isil executioner’ killed in Syrian strike, says family

A FRENCH national behind the Paris terror attacks has died in an airstrike, while another notorious French jihadist has been arrested.

Salim Benghalem, an Isil fighter, was killed in November in a Syrian regime attack, family members told the French news service France Info.

Benghalem was among the masterminds of the Paris attacks and was sentenced, in absentia, to 15 years’ jail for promoting a jihadist network in Syria. He was under an international arrest warrant and on a US blacklist, which described him as Isil’s “executioner”.

He had links with the Kouachi brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo atrocity. He was believed to be linked to Mehdi Nemmouche, a gunman suspected of killing four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014.

Meanwhile, Us-backed Syrian forces said they had arrested Adrien Guihal, a French jihadist who used the nom-deguerre Abu Osama al-fransi and who was thought to be among the most dangerous members of Isil.

♦ Syrian state media last night claimed a military airport near Homs had come under missile attack, reportedly from Israeli warplanes.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.