Rashid Kassim is a jihadist French native of Roanne, born in 1986 or 1987 to Algerian parents. He is part of the organization Islamic State. Rachid is connected to the several terrorist attacks that occurred in France.

Rashid Kassim is the son of Leila and Kassim Mohamed, who were Algerians that settled in Roanne in hopes of unifying their family.

His family is Muslim but they are not religious. Rachid was a young boy when his parents divorced and went on to start new families; his father with a non-Muslim and his mother with a French man that she has three children with (twin girls and a boy). At school, Rashid was described as a kind and lonely boy. Around 2000 his mother separated again, which many say made Rashid less interested in studying and more interested in violence. He began going to karate, where he dreamed of becoming a champion, and he became passionate about manga.

During his 20s Rashid began listening to rap, around the age of 23 he expressed his interest in becoming a rapper.

Later that year he pursued rapping and performed at a sports park in the city but it wasn't successful.

The following year he recorded an album, entitled Oran, which contained political messages regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The cover of the album was decorated with a scimitar and the album contains songs like "First weapon or I am a terrorist when he sings " "Salam Aleycoum Osama bin Laden", "I'm the nightmare of Big Ben". The album was a dismal failure. Living in Algeria around that time may have contributed to his radicalization. He was remembered for his rigorous and proselytizing behavior in his neighborhood. He would distribute the Quran to young people and encourage them to go to the mosque. Once he walked up to a child walking their dog and said, "The dogs ' haram ' is Satan ! ". However he was also helpful with other children, as he used to work at a social center supervising kids. He refused to shake hands with his female colleagues and asked for a prayer room, which led his employers not to renew his contract. He would have had a mentor at that time Julien B., said Abdeslam, a convert born in 1976 or 1977 and stopped in the Jura the 23 September 2016.

In the spring of 2015 he sold his Fiat 500 and replaced it with a larger model. Shortly after he left for Roanne on a thursday, with his wife Justine, their 3 year old daughter, and their cat (which they eventually had to leave in Gaziantep, before crossing the Turkish-Syrian border). His association with ISIS became present on social networks, particularly on the application of secure messaging Telegram where he goes by "Ibn Qasim "and he distributed calls to murder. He also had an account on Facebook in 2015 under the pseudonym "Nicole Ambrosia". Links are established with the perpetrators of Magnanville and of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, that he had "guided" from Syria. A video shows the July 21st of 2016 decapitating of a handcuffed prisoner. In July 2016 he met with Adel Abdel Malik and Kermiche Petitjean (both 19 years old) who were taking action on July 26 by murdering the Catholic priest Jacques Hamel in his church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. At the beginning of September 2016 he started a female commando composed of Gilligmann Ornella (29 years old), Sarah Hervouët (23 years old), Ines Madani (19 years old) and Amel Sakaou (39 years old). The recruitment of women to take action is unprecedented in the Islamic state, which suggests that Rashid Kassim has some autonomy in its actions. The four women - who were not known before - are responsible for an attempted car bomb right in Paris on September 4th 2016, before all being arrested within days. They also effected several people arrested escape; with the help of a "foreign intelligence service only able to hack" the encrypted Application so they were suspected of planning attacks in France:

In November 2016 he did an interview with Amarnath Amarasingam, an American student at George Washington University. He said to have "migrated to Syria a year ago, but now I'm sad. Many of us are jealous brothers who directly attack areas considered non-Muslim. We believe that even a small attack in those areas there is more than a great attack in Syria."