Tunisia killer provides 'possible IS link' to attack

A French-Tunisian militant who assassinated two Tunisian politicians in 2013 may provide a possible link between Charlie Hebdo suspect Cherif Kouachi and the Islamic State group based in Iraq and Syria, a researcher told AFP.

Boubaker al-Hakim is a member of the Islamic State (IS) group who last month claimed responsibility for assassinating two secular politicians in Tunisia in 2013.

He was previously part of the "Butte-Chaumont network" in Paris - alongside Kouachi - that helped send fighters to join al-Qaeda in Iraq in the mid-2000s.

Hakim "represents the link between the Kouachi brothers and [IS]," said researcher Jean-Pierre Filiu, a leading expert on radical Islam at Paris's Sciences Po university.

"It is impossible that an operation on the scale of the one that led to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo was not sponsored by Daesh," he claimed, using an alternative name for IS.