One of world’s most wanted ISIS terrorists linked to priest beheading is killed in US air strike – but leaves final message accusing leaders of hypocrisy

ONE of the world’s most wanted ISIS jihadis has been slaughtered in a US airstrike on Mosul in Iraq, the Pentagon has said.

Rachid Kassim is said to have helped coordinate the beheading of elderly priest Jacques Hamel in northern France last year.

French authorities also suspect him of helping to orchestrate the 2016 knife killings of a French cop and his wife.

Kassim, who was born to an Algerian mother in Roanne, France, in 1987 was a high profile recruiter for ISIS.

The jihadi thug is also thought to have linked up radicalised teenagers through Facebook and Telegram accounts.

An audio recording that was designed to be released after his death was played through social media channels on Wednesday.

In the clip, which is thought to have made in December, Kassim says he had been asked to carry out a suicide attack.

He condemns ISIS leaders for sending their men to the front lines whilst not volunteering to fight themselves.

He also encourages his fellow fighters to treat the widows of jihadis better.

Kassim appeared in a propaganda video last year after the Bastille Day attack in Nice that lead to the deaths of 86 people.

In the video he beheaded a captive and called for more attacks on French soil.

In November he told the blog Jihadology: “A lot of us are jealous of brother who attack in dar ul-kufr.

“We believe that even a small attack in dar ul-kufr is better than a big attack in Syria.

“As the door of hijrah [migration] closes, the door of jihad opens. If I stayed in dar ul-kufr, I would do an attack there.”

Kassim was the target of a US airstrike on Mosul, the Pentagon said on Friday.

His death has been confirmed by US and French police sources.

But a high-ranking official told AFP press agency that there was not “absolute confirmation”.