Colleagues of U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig carry signs during a news conference
Colleagues of U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig carry signs during a news conference calling for his release in Tripoli, northern Lebanon November 8, 2014. Kassig, a 26-year-old humanitarian worker from Indiana whose first name was Peter before he converted to Islam while in captivity, was abducted on October 1, 2013. He is currently being held hostage by Islamic State militants, who threatened to behead him in a video issued last month that showed the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, 47. The words on the 3rd left read, "Justice to Abdul-Rahman". REUTERS/Omar Ibrahim

One of the Islamic State militants appearing in the latest beheading video was identified. French security services confirmed that it was a Frenchman.

The Islamic State video, where the Middle Eastern extremist group had apparently beheaded American aid worker Peter Kassig, featured a French member. French Prosecutor Frederic Molins confirmed the identity of the man as Maxime Hauchard, a French national. He said that there could be another Frenchman in the video, but it was "too early" to confirm it. The footage is being analysed at present to determine if a second Frenchman was present in the video. The 15-minute footage circulated online shows 18 men having been beheaded by Islamic State activists. Those, who were executed, had apparently been loyal officers and pilots of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Reuters reported.

According to French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, the DGSI security service analysis confirmed that it was 22-year-old Hauchard who had appeared in the video. Hauchard, a Muslim convert, is from the Normandy region. He was one of those in the video that herded prisoners to the site of execution. One of his contacts was reportedly arrested last week in France. He was slapped with terrorism-related charges. The contact apparently travelled twice to Mauritania for attending Salafist Koranic centres. Intelligence services were aware of the man who had apparently returned from Mauritania disappointed. According to reports, he did not find the teachings at the schools "radical enough" for his preference.

A British man earlier claimed that his son was involved in the video. The father said that his son, a medical student, was the one who had shot the execution video for Islamic State. According to Molins, there were 1,132 French nationals who had been involved in extremist activities linked to the Middle East. He also said that 376 of those, including 10 minors and 88 women, had been in Iraq and Syria. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that the extremists would have to "pay for the horrors" they had carried out. He said that it was not only an external enemy but an internal one as well simply because those French extremists could use such "terror weapons" against their own country.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au