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A knifeman shouting ''Allahu Akbar'' at a school in France has left one teacher dead

2023-10-14

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

A knifeman shouting "Allahu Akbar" at a school in France has left one teacher dead and several other people injured as former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal called for a Day of Jihad.

"He has a knife, guys, he has a knife ..."
Eyewitness video shows people trying to stop… pic.twitter.com/vdWs0n673a
— 'Seeing is believing' (@dave24144975) October 13, 2023

More from KavkazUzel.com

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
French media talked about the Mogushkov family

The elder brother of Mohamad Mogushkov, who was detained after the attack on a school in Arras, is serving a sentence under terrorist charges, and Mohamad himself was under surveillance by security forces. In 2014, the French authorities tried to deport the Mogushkov family, which includes five children, to Russia, according to French media publications.

As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, police in Arras, France, detained a 20-year-old native of Chechnya suspected of attacking a school, which resulted in the death of a teacher and two people being stabbed. According to French publications, this is Mohamad Mogushkov, in France he was included in the "S" list for "radical Islamism", and his younger brother was detained near another high school.

The elder brother of the Arras school attack suspect has been convicted of terrorism charges, BFMTV reported today, citing a police source. Arrested in 2019 on charges of plotting a terrorist attack, he was sentenced to five years in prison for aiding and abetting terrorism offenses and 18 months for justifying terrorism. He is currently being held in La Sane prison in Paris, according to a publication on the television network's website, citing a source close to the case.

The suspect himself, Mohamad Mogushkov, recently became the object of active surveillance by security forces - he was wiretapped and subjected to “physical surveillance.” The last check was on October 12, but no charges were brought, Le Figaro reported today, citing a police source.

In February 2014, French authorities attempted to deport the Mogushkov family, which includes five children, to Russia, France 3 Regions Bretagne reported on February 19, 2014. On this morning, they were woken up by border guards who sent the family to the airport. However, the deportation of the family was prevented by a number of organizations involved in helping refugees, who stood up for them, and the family was released. The practice of expulsion was then condemned by the branch of the federation of the Communist Party of France, which stated that the family meets all the necessary criteria - its members speak French, the children are successfully receiving an education, the publication says.

Almost three years ago, on October 16, 2020, in the suburbs of Paris, teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded, who had previously shown his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad from Charlie Hebdo magazine during a lesson on freedom of speech. The alleged killer was shot dead by the police; he turned out to be an 18-year-old Russian citizen, a native of Chechnya, Abdulak (Abdullah) Anzorov, who received refugee status in France. Anzorov was buried in the family cemetery in the village of Shalazhi, Urus-Martan district.

The Times of Israel has details of the attack and a fuzzy photo of the miscreant being taken in by police:

A Chechen-origin man fatally stabbed a teacher and severely maimed three other adults Friday at a school in northeastern La Belle France, with authorities suggesting a probable link to Israel’s war with Hamas
Hamas

...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
The attack, denounced by President Emmanuel Macron as an act of "Islamist terror," was in the town of Arras which has large Jewish and Moslem populations.

"This school was struck by the barbarity of Islamist terrorism," Macron said after visiting the school, saying the victim had "probably saved many lives" with his courage in seeking to block the attacker.

Macron said another "attempted attack" in another region had been foiled by security forces.

According to the interior ministry, he was referring to the arrest of a "radicalized" man who was arrested leaving a prayer hall in the Yvelines region of Gay Paree for carrying a prohibited weapon.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin later said there was "probably a link between what’s happening in the Middle East and this incident" in Arras.

La Belle France has upped its alert level to the highest position following a crunch security meeting chaired by Macron later Friday, the prime minister’s office told AFP.

The suspected attacker, Mohammed Moguchkov, who is in his 20s, was arrested by police.

A total of eight people were in police custody on Friday, a police source said.

In addition to the attacker, several members of his family were arrested "for the purposes of the investigation," including one of his brothers and his sister, other police sources said.

The national anti-terrorist prosecutor announced that it has opened an investigation.

Moguchkov is from Russia’s mainly Moslem southern Caucasus region of Chechnya. He was already on a French national register known as "Fiche S" as a potential security threat, a police source told AFP, and under electronic and physical surveillance by La Belle France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI.

Moguchkov cried the Arabic phrase "~~holy shit!~~ Allahu akbar!" (God is greatest), according to the preliminary elements of the investigation.

The victim, a French teacher, was stabbed in the throat and chest.

Among those maimed were a school security agent who was stabbed multiple times and is fighting for his life, and a teacher in a less serious condition, the source added.

A cleaner was also hurt, anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said.

No pupils at the school were hurt, said another police source.

Police say Moguchkov’s brother, aged 17, was detained close to another school.

A philosophy teacher who witnessed the attack, Martin Dousseau, described a moment of panic during break-time, when the schoolchildren found themselves face-to-face with the armed man.

"He attacked canteen staff. I wanted to go down to intervene, he turned to me, chased me and asked me if I was a history and geography teacher," said Dousseau.

"We barricaded ourselves in, then the police arrived and immobilized him."

Courtesy of Skidmark, the Daily Mail has more in addition to photos and a video of the attack (once again this is a Rantburg team project):

An alleged ISIS supporter stabbed a teacher to death at a school in northern La Belle France today before seriously wounding two others.

Mohammed Mogouchkov, a Chechen refugee aged 19, is said to have murdered Dominique Bernard, a French literature teacher in his 40s at the Gambetta high school in Arras at 11am local time.

At least two other people were maimed, including a security agent who was stabbed multiple times and a teacher who is in a less serious condition, a source added. No pupil at the school was hurt.

Both Mogouchkov and his brother, who was also taken into custody, were known to the authorities and were on the national security watchlist, police said.

Mogouchkov's brother is said to have spent 18 months in prison for distributing ISIS propaganda online, and Mogouchkov was also a known ISIS sympathiser, sources said.

Sliman Hamzi, a police officer who was one of the first on the scene said Mogouchkov, a former pupil at the school, shouted: 'Allahu Akbar' - 'God is great' in Arabic.

Mr Hamzi said he was alerted by another officer who was passing in front of the high school and called in. He 'was shouting: 'Someone is attacking with a knife,'' Mr Hamzi said.

'Colleagues arrived quickly but unfortunately couldn't save the victim,' Mr Hamzi said.

Fabien Dufay, a PE teacher at the school said he had taught Mogouchkov in his final year 'three years ago'. He described him as a 'reserved, calm student with whom I had completely normal conversations.'

The attacker 'had two knives in his hands,' says another teacher at the school, who asked not to be named. 'He turned to me and said, 'Are you a history teacher? Are you a history teacher?',' said the teacher, who then hid behind a glass door.

He added: 'It was only when I left that I was able to see that the attack was much more serious than I thought. Someone was dead in front of the school.'

Clips of what appear to be the attack circulated by students on social media show how a man appears to lunge at victims in the courtyard. One of the victims holds a chair between himself and the attacker to defend himself but is ultimately bundled to the ground and sustains several blows.

Students meanwhile barricaded themselves in classrooms and were told to remain inside.

President Emmanuel Macron said in an address to the nation on Thursday that 582 religious and cultural facilities in La Belle France were receiving stepped-up police protection.

Update from Russia Today at 10:30 p.m. EDT courtesy of Grom in comments below — for searchability later:

The suspect was identified as Mohamed Mogouchkov, a “Russian national” of Chechen or Ingush origin, who was under police monitoring for his involvement with Islamist extremists groups.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said there is “no doubt” that the Arras attack is linked to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. Police have arrested Mogouchkov, as well as his mother, sister, uncle, and 17-year-old brother.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: September 24th, 2022

2022-09-25

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] 22:55 The UN Security Council on Tuesday, September 27, will discuss holding Russia's "referenda" in the occupied territories of Ukraine, the department's secretariat reported. The initiative was taken by Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Serhiy Kyslitsa, who also asked UN Secretary General António Guterres to provide information on the situation in the temporarily occupied territories in connection with the "referenda". The meeting is scheduled for September 27, 22:00 Kyiv time.

22:47 The occupational "authorities" of Melitopol announced an "attempt of sabotage" at an electrical substation: an improvised explosive device allegedly went off, the damage is minor, there are no victims or injured.

22:23 Lavrov said at the UN General Assembly that Russia in the current situation "will not take the first steps towards a dialogue with the West." He also stressed that Moscow does not refuse negotiations with Ukraine, "but the longer Kyiv refuses, the more difficult it will be to negotiate."

22:13 Podolyak said that in response to the announcement of partial mobilization in the Russian Federation, Ukraine's partners should provide Kiev with twice as many HIMARS and shells, as well as ATACMS tactical missile systems with a range of 300 km.

22:10 A powerful explosion thundered in the northern part of Melitopol. According to the mayor of the city, Ivan Fedorov, "resistance forces again do not allow the occupiers to sleep peacefully." According to eyewitnesses, a fire truck drove to the scene.

22:02 Zelensky again addressed the Russians in Russian: “It was not by chance that the criminal mobilization announced by Russia was immediately called a grave by the citizens of Russia themselves. Russian commanders do not care about the lives of Russians - they just need to fill in the empty spaces left after the dead, captured Russian soldiers... A key moment has come for you: right now it is being decided whether your life will end. It is better not to take a summons than to die on foreign soil as a war criminal. To escape from criminal mobilization is better than to be maimed and then answer to the court for participation in an aggressive war. Surrendering to Ukrainian captivity is better than dying under the blows of our weapons."

9:18 pm US congressmen are preparing a bipartisan appeal to Biden calling for Russia's exclusion from the UN Security Council, Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick said.

20:49 The Russians forced the Ukrainian prisoners of war, who are being held in the colony in Yelenovka, to take part in the "referendum" and join the "Cossack battalion named after Bohdan Khmelnitsky." According to Russian media, 57 prisoners of war with Ukrainian passports, which bear a mark of registration in the Donetsk region, took part in the "referendum". Also, according to propaganda, they allegedly themselves turned to the "People's Council of the DPR" with a request to join the "Cossack battalion named after Bogdan Khmelnitsky" being formed.

20:45 The procedure for "entry" into Russia "DNR", "LNR", Kherson and Zaporozhye regions may take place on September 30, Russian media write, citing sources in the State Duma.

20:24 The bodies of five children were found in a mass grave in Izyum, said the head of the investigative department of the police of the Kharkiv region, Sergei Bolvinov. According to him, 447 bodies of the dead were found at the mass grave site. Of these, 194 are civilian men, 215 are women, 22 are military men, and five are children. In 11 bodies, the sex has not yet been determined. “Many of the dead are missing limbs, their hands are tied, there are shrapnel wounds, head and chest injuries, missing genitals, broken ribs, stab wounds, penetrating bullet wounds, ropes around the neck,” Bolvinov said.

20:12 In the area of the settlements of Yuryevka and Urzuf of the Mariupol region, two powerful explosions thundered, and in Mariupol itself, air defense, which stands right in the city, worked, said the mayor's adviser Petr Andryushchenko. "Good harbingers of returning home. To Ukraine," he wrote.

19:48 Bills on the annexation of the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia will be submitted to the State Duma on September 28 - the day after the end of the "referenda". They can be considered and voted on September 29, TASS reports.

19:37 In Russia, they will pay a one-time payment of 300 thousand rubles to mobilized citizens. The corresponding bill has already been submitted to the State Duma by deputies from United Russia and the Communist Party.

19:21 The Armed Forces of Ukraine repulsed the attacks of the invaders in the areas of the settlements of Petropavlovka, Vyemka, Bakhmutskoye, Zaitsevo, Experienced, Otradovka, Nevelskoye and Novomikhailovka, the General Staff said in the evening report . Ukrainian aviation attacked 14 areas of concentration of manpower and military equipment of the Russian Federation and five positions of anti-aircraft missile systems. Air defense units destroyed four enemy aircraft and a cruise missile.

18:16 Poland does not intend to open borders for Russians who evade mobilization, Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said in an interview with PAP. According to him, this is "highly undesirable" both from a security and moral point of view. However, he allowed an exception for those Russians who actually opposed the war or participated in protests.

17:31 On September 20, 130 League PMC mercenaries arrived in Minsk with personal weapons and ammunition that can be involved in organizing provocations on the Ukrainian border, the National Resistance Center of the MTR reported, citing information received from the Belarusian underground. Already on September 22, 300 units of Ukrainian military uniforms were delivered to the territory of the Belarusian private security company Gard Service, where the mercenaries are located, which the Russians seized in warehouses in the Kherson region. Possible sabotage is expected in the area of the settlements of Pinsk, Ivanovo and Kobrin.

17:08 Zelensky awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine to the deceased military Serhiy Owl, whose body with blue and yellow bracelets on his arm was found during exhumation in Izyum.

16:26 Putin signed laws on imprisonment for up to ten years for refusing to participate in hostilities, voluntary surrender, desertion, non-appearance of military personnel for conscription service, etc.

15:50 In Crimea, 80% of all handed subpoenas were received by Crimean Tatars. Therefore, they are forced to leave the peninsula, the UP reports with reference to interlocutors among the Crimean Tatars. Human rights activists Crimea SOS note that the mobilization of the Crimean Tatars can lead to genocide. According to their estimates, the Crimean Tatars received about 90% of the subpoenas in Crimea.

15:38 Borrell said in an interview with the BBC that the European Union should take Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons seriously and come to a diplomatic solution, "but with one indispensable condition: it must preserve the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine." Otherwise, according to him, "we can end the war, but we will not have peace, but there will be another war."

According to a European diplomat, the war has reached a "dangerous moment" because "the Russian army is cornered and Putin's reaction - the threat of using nuclear weapons - is very bad."

15:19 Russian opposition media report, citing their sources, that the Russian Federation will close the state borders on September 28 - immediately after the "referenda" in the occupied territories of Ukraine. In particular, according to Iznanka's sources, all men and women who may be subject to mobilization will be prohibited from leaving. According to the publication, the relevant bill will be considered at a meeting of the State Duma and adopted with lightning speed - just as it happened before the announcement of mobilization.

At the same time, several Russian regions have already banned the departure of those liable for military service outside the city or region. Restrictive measures have been introduced in the Amur, Voronezh, Kurgan, Kursk, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Smolensk, Rostov, Sverdlovsk, Tver, Chelyabinsk regions, as well as in North Ossetia, Dagestan, Tatarstan and Yakutia.

14:41 The "DPR" once again accused Ukraine of shelling the center of Donetsk - this time in the area of Vatutina Avenue and Rosa Luxembourg Street. Pushilin said that as a result of attacks on the city, one person was killed and three were wounded.

13:58 In Mariupol last night, the occupation administration was reprimanded for an ultra-low turnout at the "referendum", so this morning began with a forced vote. According to Petr Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of the city, mobile teams were waiting for workers at their workplaces with the condition - you vote or you lose your job and salary. Several tents were also set up in places of concentration of people, but even here there were few people willing. Many evade voting, including leaving the city for the coast.

13:34 The Iranian Foreign Ministry, in response to the restrictions imposed by the Ukrainian side on the work of the Iranian embassy in Kiev, said that Tehran "regrets" Kiev's tightening of diplomatic cooperation, but considers this measure "based on unconfirmed reports and caused by the creation of a media space by a foreign country" . The statement also emphasized that Iran stands for "political settlement of disputes in a non-violent way."

12:49 After the scandals with the provision of the Russian army and the mobilized, the Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia, General Dmitry Bulgakov, who was responsible for logistics, was dismissed. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation stated that he "was relieved of his post in connection with the transfer to another job." Instead, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev was appointed.

The Western press calls Mizintsev the "Mariupol Butcher" and the "Syrian Executioner". It was he who was behind the bombing of Aleppo and gave orders to bomb the maternity hospital and drama theater in Mariupol.

12:36 Erdogan's speaker, Ibrahim Kalin, said that initially the Turkish and Ukrainian presidents coordinated the exchange of 15 commanders with Azovstal, but they managed to agree on only five - Denis Prokopenko, Sergey Volynsky, Svyatoslav Palamar, Denis Shleg and Oleg Khomenko. The discussion of release from captivity lasted about three and a half months.

12:08 The United States raised aircraft tracking strategic nuclear weapons into the sky at night , reports flightradar24.

10:48 Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said that his country will not provide asylum to Russians fleeing mobilization: "Lithuania will not provide asylum to those Russians who simply run away from responsibility and try to evade mobilization. The Russians must stay and fight. against Putin.

10:15 The General Staff announced the approximate losses of the enemy on the morning of September 24th. The enemy suffered the greatest losses in the Kramatorsk and Donetsk directions.

personnel - about 56,300 (+240) people liquidated,

tanks - 2262 (+8),

armored combat vehicles - 4807 (+11),

artillery systems - 1361 (+6),

MLRS - 327 (+1),

air defense systems - 170 (+0),

aircraft - 255 (+1),

helicopters - 220 (+1),

UAV operational-tactical level - 956 (+6),

cruise missiles - 240 (+0),

ships/boats - 15 (+0),

automotive equipment and tankers - 3681 (+22),

special equipment - 126 (+0).

10:04 Over the past day, the Russians fired at the settlements of the Kharkiv region, located near the border with the Russian Federation and the collision line. The Kupyansky district suffers the most from shelling. Over the past 24 hours, five people were injured there, including two children, said Oleg Sinegubov, head of the Kharkiv OVA.

10:01 In the Donetsk region over the past day, as a result of enemy shelling, two civilians were killed - in Bakhmut and Krasnogorovka. Three more people were injured, Pavel Kirilenko, head of the OVA, said.

09:57 Russians fired from Gradov and Hurricanes Marganets and Krasnogrigoryevsk communities of the Nikopol district of Dnepropetrovsk region in the morning. In Marganets, two people were injured, more than 20 private and multi-storey buildings, a bakery were damaged, said the head of the OVA, Valentin Reznichenko.

09:42 British intelligence believes that Russian troops are striking at the dams - Karachunovskaya near Krivoy Rog and Pechenezhskaya near Kharkov - as Ukrainian troops are moving down the Ingulets and Seversky Donets. Thus, Ukrainian forces are moving further down both rivers. As Russian commanders become more concerned about their operational setbacks, they are likely trying to hit dam locks to flood Ukrainian military checkpoints, analysts say.

At the same time, intelligence considers it unlikely that the attacks caused a significant disruption in Ukrainian operations - due to the large distance between the damaged dams and combat zones.

09:38 Putin took over strategic control of the invasion, writes The New York Times. The command of the troops is not happy - he did not allow the withdrawal of troops from Kherson, because he does not want reputational losses. The publication notes that Putin has no military flexibility. At critical moments in decision-making, he procrastinated, refusing to face reality as the situation for the troops worsened.

09:34 The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office of France (PNAT) is investigating seven cases of crimes committed against the French during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As the head of the department, Jean-Francois Ricard, told in an interview with AFP, the crimes concern, in particular, the death of the French-Irish journalist Pierre Zakrevsky in Gorenka near Kyiv and the journalist of the BFMTV channel Frederic Leclerc Imhoff.

“We are extremely determined. We are not opening an investigation for the sake of formality, just to announce it. We are opening an investigation in order to finally identify those responsible and so that trials take place - in France or somewhere else,” Ricard stressed.

09:22 The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) states that partial mobilization in the Russian Federation already in the first days faced serious and systemic problems that cause discontent among the population and create conditions for the formation of a mobilization reserve that is unable to fulfill its tasks. And different processes of mobilization in different regions of Russia can further exacerbate social tension in the country. Analysts note that disagreements with the decree on mobilization and statements by Putin and Shoigu about the categories of men exempted from mobilization cause anger and distrust towards the Russian subjects of the federation and the Kremlin itself.

The Russian occupation authorities began voting in their fake annexation referenda on September 23 with overt coercion and voter turnout fraud, ISW notes.

08:48 One of the Russian missiles fired at Zaporozhye tonight was shot down by air defense forces. The fragments of the shell fell outside the city, there were no casualties, said the head of the OVA Alexander Starukh.

07:51 In the occupied territories of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, the occupiers hand over subpoenas to men of military age with Russian passports, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.

07:45 Subdivisions of the Defense Forces repelled enemy attacks in about ten settlements in a day - Disputed, Soledar, Bakhmutsky, Odradovka, Kurdyumovka, Zaitsevo, Mayorsk, Kamenka, Avdiivka and Experienced, the General Staff reports in the morning summary .

05:59 The Russians fired at least five rockets at Zaporozhye at night. Infrastructure facilities were hit, one rocket hit the residential sector and caused a fire in a multi-storey building. As a result of enemy shelling, one person was killed and seven wounded, said the head of the OVA Alexander Starukh.

05:20 The United States will never recognize the occupied territories of Ukraine as Russian, Biden said in a statement: "Russian referendums are a fiction, a false pretext for attempts to annex parts of Ukraine by force, which is a flagrant violation of international law, including the UN Charter. <.. .> The United States, along with partners around the world <...> reject any fabricated results announced by Russia."

Biden stressed that the United States, together with its allies, intends to quickly prepare new sanctions against the aggressor state of the Russian Federation: "We will continue to support the Ukrainian people and provide them with security assistance to help protect themselves."

04:13 A Russian drone in southern Ukraine dropped containers with a poisonous substance onto the combat positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to OK Pivden, presumably, it was a K-51 chloropicrin grenade. Combat medics worked well, there were no casualties or critical conditions.

Link

Europe

Prosecutor: French Police Worker's Killer Watched Militant Videos Before Attack, 5th person detained

2021-04-26

[ENGLISH.AAWSAT] The Tunisian national who killed a police administrative worker last Friday near Gay Paree had watched videos glorifying extremism just before carrying out his attack, said La Belle France's anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard.

Ricard told a news conference on Sunday that the official investigation had shown that the assailant, identified as "Jamel G",

...a little late for such circumspection, after he was identified yesterday as Jamel Gorchene from M'saken, Tunisia, the hometown of Mohammed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who murdered 86 on Bastille Day in Nice in 2016 by driving a truck into the holiday crowd...

looked at the videos on his phone just before his knife attack on the police worker, a mother-of-two called Stephanie.

Stephanie died from stab wounds, while 37-year-old Jamel G was subsequently rubbed out by police after the attack at a cop shoppe in Rambouillet, a commuter suburb south of Gay Paree.

French President Emmanuel Macron said last Friday, in reaction to the killing in Rambouillet, that La Belle France had again been the victim of a terrorist attack.

Ricard said La Belle France was working with Tunisian authorities in its probe into the Rambouillet attack. The Tunisian Embassy in Gay Paree condemned the attack, in a statement issued this weekend.

French authorities detained a fifth person Sunday in the anti-terrorism investigation seeking to identify potential accomplices and motives. Ricard said police are questioning a cousin of the suspect.

Jamel G. entered La Belle France illegally in 2009 and was given residency papers at the end of 2019, he added.

The Times of Israel adds:

The suspect’s father, a couple who had provided him with an address for mail and other administration, and another cousin were also being questioned, Ricard says.

Link

Europe

France reviews terror threat after suspected jihadist attack, 4 arrested

2021-04-25

That’d be the unidentified knifeman of yesterday’s story. See also here for his hometown’s view of our miscreant.

[AlAhram] The French government held an emergency meeting Saturday after a Tunisian man stabbed a police employee to death near Gay Paree in a suspected Islamist attack as Sherlocks questioned three people linked to the assailant.

Friday's murder at a cop shoppe in Rambouillet, a commuter town about 60 kilometres (40 miles) from Gay Paree, revived the trauma of a spate of deadly Islamist attacks in recent years.

The victim was a 49-year-old woman named as Stephanie M., a police administrative assistant and mother of two teenage girls, who was stabbed twice in the throat at the entrance of the station.

Her alleged 36-year-old attacker Jamel Gorchene, who had not been known to police or intelligence services, was shot and killed by an officer at the scene.

The latest violence targeting police is likely to focus attention further on the danger of Islamic extremism in La Belle France and wider concerns about security a year ahead of a presidential election.

National anti-terrorism prosecutors have opened a terror investigation.

A source close to the inquiry told AFP the knifeman shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) during the attack. Chief anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard confirmed "comments made by the assailant" indicated a terror motive and said the attack may have been premeditated.

SECURITY STEPPED UP
The suspect's father and two other people said to have hosted him were taken into custody on Friday, and questioning continued on Saturday as police delve into his background, contacts and possible motives.

A fourth person was also taken into custody and the homes of all four peoiple searched.

A source close to the investigation said Gorchene's phone contained religious chants often used to spread jihadist propaganda.

The assailant had arrived in La Belle France illegally in 2009 but had since obtained residency papers, a police source said. He had just moved to Rambouillet and worked as a delivery driver.

Relatives in Tunisia described him as depressive and not devout while expressing shock and disbelief.

Gorchene was from M'saken, the same hometown as Tunisian Mohammed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who carried out a deadly attack in La Belle France in July 2016.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen immediately questioned why the attacker had been able to settle in the country, and hit back at recent criticism about police brutality in La Belle France.

'We need to get back to reason: supporting our police, expelling illegal im~~migrants~~ colonists and eradicating Islamism,' she wrote on Twitter.

Polls show her running close to Macron in next year's election, though experts warn that surveys conducted so far ahead and during a pandemic should be interpreted with caution.

About 30 coppers wearing balaclavas raided the suspect's home in Rambouillet on Friday, AFP news hounds said.

At the same time police in the Gay Paree region searched the home of the person who had sheltered him when he first arrived in La Belle France, sources close to the inquiry said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who also visited officers in Rambouillet, said security would be stepped up at stations nationwide.

Link

Europe

Day 3: French police make arrests after teacher beheaded in Paris suburb

2020-10-18

Yesterday’s report can be seen here.

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

#French police make arrests after teacher beheaded in #Paris suburb#BaghdadPost https://t.co/WaBMZES4yz
— The Baghdad Post (@BaghdadPostPlus) October 18, 2020

Police shot the attacker dead minutes after he murdered 47-year-old history teacher Samuel Paty on Friday.

Four relatives of the attacker, including a minor, were detained in the immediate aftermath of the attack in the middle-class suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, according to police sources.

Five more were detained overnight, among them two parents of pupils at the College du Bois d’Aulne where the teacher was employed.

A week ago, one man who said his daughter was in Paty’s class recorded a video shared on social media in which he branded the teacher a thug and appealed to others to "join forces and say ’stop, don’t touch our children’".

It was not clear whether the parent was one of those in police custody. It was also not immediately known if the attacker had seen the video.

The Times of Israel adds:

A history teacher beheaded in a Gay Paree suburb on Friday had been the target of online threats for having shown pupils cartoons of the Moslem prophet Mohammed in class, La Belle France’s anti-terror prosecutor said on Saturday.

The father of a schoolgirl had sought 47-year-old teacher Samuel Paty’s dismissal and launched an online call for "mobilization" against him after the lesson on freedom of expression, Jean-Francois Ricard said in a televised news conference.

Paty was decapitated outside his school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northwest of the capital, and the killer was fatally maimed by police.

Ricard said a warrant of arrest is out for the father’s half sister, who has joined the Islamic State group’s fighters in Syria.

Ricard identified the attacker as Abdullakh A., an 18-year-old Chechen with refugee status in La Belle France. The Russian embassy in Gay Paree said the suspect was Abdullakh Anzorov, whose family had arrived in La Belle France when he was six and requested asylum.

Possibly time to withdraw that asylum, as it seems the family is not suited to living there.

Ricard said the school received threats after the class in early October, which featured the controversial caricatures — one of the prophet naked — with the girl’s father accusing Paty of disseminating "pornography".

The girl and her father lodged a criminal complaint against the teacher, who in turn filed a complaint of defamation, said Ricard.

The aggrieved father named Paty and gave the school’s address in a social media post just days before the beheading, which President Emmanuel Macron has labeled an Islamist terror attack.

The prosecutor said the attacker had been armed with a knife, an airgun and five canisters. He had fired shots at police and tried to stab them as they closed in on him.

He was shot nine times, said Ricard.

Those arrested included four close family members of Abdullakh A., and two people who had reported to police to say they had been in contact with him, said the prosecutor.

Police also arrested a friend of the schoolgirl’s father who had gone with him to see the principal to demand Paty’s dismissal.

The friend was already on the radar of French intelligence services, and Ricard said a warrant of arrest is out for the father’s half sister, who has joined the Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group’s fighters in Syria.

The attacker himself was not known to the French intelligence services, said the prosecutor.

An investigation is underway into "murder linked to a terrorist organization".

An earlier Times of Israel article adds:

Those previously detained are all relatives including grandparents, parents and a 17-year-old brother.

Link

Europe

Terrorism charges filed in stabbings near French newspaper

2020-10-01

[IsraelTimes] A Pak man accused in a double stabbing outside the former Gay Paree offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo
...

A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
is handed preliminary terrorism charges.

The suspect told Sherlocks he acted out of anger over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad recently republished by the weekly newspaper.

Investigating magistrates handed him preliminary charges of "attempted murder in relation with a terrorist enterprise," the counterterrorism prosecutor’s office says. He will remain in jug pending further investigation. Relatives and associates of the suspect were released without charge.

Counterterrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard says the Pakistain-born suspect identified himself as Zaher Hassan Mahmood,

...in our archives as Zeheer Hassan Mehmood ...

25. Ricard says the assailant did not claim an affiliation with a specific bad boy group.

Link

Europe

Paris meat cleaver attacker charged with attempted terrorist killings, wanted to set Charlie Hebdo office on fire

2020-09-30

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

#BREAKING #Paris meat cleaver attacker charged with attempted terrorist killings: prosecutors pic.twitter.com/wg6LvGKvFx
— Alghadeer English (@alghadeertv_eng) September 29, 2020

Paris attacker wanted to set Charlie Hebdo offices on fire - prosecutor
[Jpost] The Pak man who maimed two people with a knife in front of the former offices of Charlie Hebdo
...

A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
last week did not know that the satirical magazine had moved and wanted to set its offices on fire, the Gay Paree prosecutor said on Tuesday.

Prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard told a news conference the man carried three bottles of the flammable paint thinner White Spirit. He also said the man had operated under a false identity and that a photo of his passport on his phone showed that he was 25 years old, not 18 as he first said.

Confirming his identity as the thoroughly adult Zeheer Hassan Mehmood, hero of Mandi Bahauddin village, not mythical lad Hassan Ali, on whom the French government showered benefits without bothering to check.

Link

Europe

Terror risks remains ‘extremely high’ in France — interior minister

2020-09-01

[IsraelTimes] Citing 8,132 people registered on database of suspected Islamist radicals, Gerald Darmanin says ’risk of terror of Sunni origin is main threat’ to nation.

The risk of terror attacks in La Belle France remains extremely high, the interior minister said on Monday, adding that over 8,000 people were on a national warning list of Islamist radicalization.

The comments by Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin came two days before 14 people are due to go on trial over alleged involvement in attacks in January 2015 including on the Charlie Hebdo
...

A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
weekly that heralded a wave of krazed killer strikes in La Belle France.

The threat "remains extremely high in the country," Darmanin said in a speech during a visit to La Belle France’s internal security service the DGSI.

"The risk of terror of Sunni origin is the main threat that our country is facing," he added, promising a fight "without let-up."

He said 8,132 individuals had been registered on La Belle France’s database of suspected Islamist murderous Moslems considered to be a potential security threat.

Fourteen alleged accomplices in the January 7-9, 2015 jihadist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly, a French policewoman and a Jewish supermarket go on trial in Gay Paree on Wednesday.

All of the perpetrators were killed in the aftermath of the assaults but lawyers for the victims and prosecutors insist the trial will be a hugely important if potentially traumatic moment.

Speaking on La Belle France Info radio Monday, national anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard dismissed the idea that it was just "little helpers" going on trial.

"It is about individuals who are involved in the logistics, the preparation of the events, who provided means of financing, operational material, weapons, a residence.

"All this is essential to the terrorist action," he said.

The January 2015 attacks heralded a wave of Islamist violence that left 258 people dead and raised unsettling questions about modern La Belle France’s ability to preserve security and harmony for a multicultural society.

Link

Europe

The Paris Attacker's Was... A Different Kind Of Islam, Say Prosecutors.

2019-10-05

[CNN] The Paris police attacker followed a 'radical vision of Islam,' the anti-terrorism prosecutor says

The perpetrator of a knife attack that left four people dead at a Paris police headquarters had recently adhered to a "radical vision of Islam," according to witnesses, anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said Saturday.
Three policemen and a female police administrative worker were killed Thursday by a colleague who was later shot dead by a 24-year-old police intern inside the building near Notre Dame Cathedral, the prosecutor said.

The attacker, identified by police only as Mickaël H., had converted "about 10 years ago" to Islam and recently had kept to a more "radical vision," Ricard said during a news conference.

The attacker had contacts with people suspected of belonging to the ultraconservative Salafist movement of Islam, the prosecutor said.
I didn't think he was a Sufi monk doing the dervish with a knife.
The attacker had expressed his support for the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks, Ricard said, and "certain acts committed in the name of this religion," as well as a desire to "cease certain forms of contact with women" and his adoption of traditional Muslim clothing "in the last few months."
Which is why I put it in ISIS, Occam's electric trimmer. Elementary really...
Wife remains in custody

The attacker and his wife exchanged 33 text messages over 29 minutes the morning preceding the attack, and their content was "exclusively religious," the prosecutor said.

The last exchange ended with "Allahu akbar," which means "God is greater" in Arabic, and "follow the vision of our prophet Mohammed and meditate over the Quran."

These text messages were sent 30 minutes before the attacker visited a local store and bought two knives that would be used in the attack.

For more of this breathtaking piece of islamist apologetic drivel, head over with a blasély piqued mind to CNN.

For a better, not so depressing view of the LEOs of Gay Paree, head to this Daily Mail piece.

Link

Europe

Homegrown hard boyz continue to frighten the Euros

2005-12-09

Yelling into a radio reporter's microphone, the radical French Muslim from a working class neighborhood of Paris urged his friends to join him on the battlefields of Iraq.

"I'm ready to set off dynamite and boom! Boom! We kill all the Americans!" Boubaker el-Hakim cried. "All my brothers over there, come defend Islam!"

That chilling message, in a 2003 interview conducted in Iraq as U.S. troops were preparing to invade, has proven to be an early warning of a worrisome new phenomenon of homegrown militants from Europe heading to Iraq to join the insurgency, driven by anger over the U.S. occupation and what they see as Western attacks on Arabs and Islam.

For officials here fearful that France -- despite its opposition to the Iraq war -- could be one of the next targets for terror, this breed of radicals is especially hard to track because they have no known links to major terror figures like Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaida network.

Jean-Francois Ricard, one of France's top anti-terrorism judges, told The Associated Press that traveling to Iraq to fight U.S.-led forces has strong appeal among Muslims here and that recruitment chains are popping up all the time.

"We are constantly finding them," Ricard said. He estimated that "dozens" of such networks are operating across Europe.

This year, French authorities have dismantled at least four suspected feeder cells -- code-named after their ringleaders, aims or locations: They included the "Afghan veteran" cell, the "forger" cell and the "19th arrondissement" cell -- named for the 19th district of northeastern Paris where el-Hakim came from.

Recruits hoped to fight U.S. and Iraqi troops or learn how to carry out terror attacks elsewhere, Ricard said.
He and other officials at the forefront of France's fight against terrorism worry that battle-hardened youths will develop contacts and know-how in Iraq's insurgency -- and come back ready to wage war in Europe.

French militants have died in suicide bombings in Iraq, others in gunbattles. Some are in prison, caught before they could carry out attacks. Some are feared to have returned home.
Among the jihadists are teenagers, barely out of school, who drift into the orbit of older and sometimes charismatic recruiters. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said that one network included a militant just 14 years old.

Seven French citizens have died after joining up with insurgents in Iraq, two of them in suicide bombings, and at least 13 others are still there and likely still fighting, the head of France's domestic intelligence agency, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, said in November.

He and others have also expressed concerns that the most extreme of the marginalized youths who led three weeks of rioting and arson attacks in depressed French suburbs in October-November might gravitate toward violent Islam to vent their frustrations.
A recurrent pattern in cells that have already come to light is that of young Muslims drawn to a veteran militant -- some of them met in prison -- or a perceived Islamic guru.

Before they leave for Iraq, their parents, friends or girlfriends often notice changes in behavior: Growing beards, wearing Muslim skullcaps or flowing robes, changing or limiting their diets. Often, a stoic and pious approach to life sets in.
Christophe Chaboud, head of France's interagency anti-terrorism unit, said European youths who have no police records or problems getting passports could offer a useful tool for terror groups.

With European travel papers, which let them cross borders easily, "they have the profile for terror networks of exporting their action into these countries," he told AP.

Militants leaving France often say they're off to study Islam and Arabic, notably in Syria. Once there, handlers teach them basic Arabic phrases or give them local clothing to help them blend in and cross the border into Iraq, officials say.
In Europe, Islamic militancy has spread beyond a traditional base among youths of North African descent. Muriel Degauque, a Roman Catholic-born Belgian who converted to Islam after marrying an Algerian, blew herself up near a U.S. military patrol in Iraq on Nov. 9. She is said to be the first Western woman to die in jihad, or holy war.

Among France's Muslim population of about 5 million -- Western Europe's largest -- 5,000 embrace extremist Islam, according to the police's Renseignements Generaux intelligence agency. It says that of those radicals, 400 are converts. Recruitment is "in full swing, and worrying us," agency chief Pascal Mailhos said in a rare recent interview with the newspaper Le Monde.
The so-called "Afghan" cell was led by Said Hatim -- alias Said al-Maghrebi -- who fought against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to news reports. Police sweeps in Paris and southern Marseille dismantled the group in April.

The "forger cell" was formed around a convicted militant who fought in Algeria's Islamic insurgency in the 1990s. Its alleged strategy was to produce false papers for recruits to go to Iraq.
The largest -- the "19th arrondissement network" -- grew around a young kaffiyeh-wearing street preacher, Farid Benyettou. He apparently gained radical street credibility by virtue of his brother-in-law, Youcef Zemmouri, a convicted member of an Algerian insurgency movement who was arrested in a sweep of ahead of the 1998 World Cup in France.

Officials believe Benyettou recruited about 10 neighborhood youths to leave for Iraq via Syria, including el-Hakim. In the radio interview with RTL, conducted in an Iraqi training camp, el-Hakim specifically mentioned Benyettou -- calling him by his nickname, Abu Abdallah.

In the end, el-Hakim, now 21, did not blow himself up. He was captured by Syrian police in September last year while trying to cross into Iraq. He was extradited and jailed in France this summer, and now awaits trial on terrorism-related charges.
Another alleged member of the group, Peter Cherif, 22, is one of three French militants said by officials to be in U.S. custody in Iraq. He was detained in December in Fallujah and, according to his mother, has been held at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

In a telephone interview, the mother said her son was "roped into learning Islam" and "abused" by his group of friends that included Benyettou.

"It is all done in the lone goal of using these youths to destroy themselves," Myriam Cherif said. "My son was brainwashed. This is just like a sect."

Link

Europe

France detains alleged extremist expelled from Syria

2005-06-05

French police have arrested a suspected radical, expelled on Tuesday from Syria, and placed him under formal judicial investigation, legal sources said Saturday. Boubaker el-Hakim, 21, who is of Tunisian origin and comes from eastern Paris, is the brother of Redouane, 19, who was killed in Iraq in July 2004.

Even better. The revolving door approach doesn't work when you're dead...

He is under investigation for "conspiracy relating to a terrorist enterprise" by anti-terrorist judge Jean-Francois Ricard, in particular in respect of links with Iraq. Police say he knew Farid Benyettou, detained in Paris in January and alleged to be the spritual leader and recruiter of a group of young Parisians seeking to carry out holy war in Iraq. Hakim is known to have visited Syria in 2002 to study Islam and to have returned the following year at the time of the overthrow of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. In 2004 he made a further visit but was arrested in September while trying to cross into Iraq without a passport. In addition to Hakim's brother, two young Frenchmen who attended a mosque in eastern Paris regularly visited by Hakim are known to have died fighting in Iraq.

And I'm sure we all hope that their exit from this vale of tears was sufficiently spectacular and painful...

Link

Europe

France probes 'fake' bank robbery [to fund terrorism]

2004-11-22

France has launched a judicial investigation after a cash machine technician was accused of faking a robbery to help fund a terror network. Hassan Baouchi, 23, a former employee with Brink's security company, was arrested on Thursday. He claimed he had been robbed of one million euros which should have been used to refill cash machines. The French authorities suspect the cash went to fund activities by a group blamed for attacks in Morocco in 2003. Mr Baouchi has been placed under judicial investigation for "criminal association relating to a terrorist enterprise" by a top anti-terror judge, Jean-Francois Ricard.

An interior ministry spokesman told Reuters news agency: "Hassan Baouchi organised his own kidnapping and the theft of the money for the cash machines. "The stolen money was destined to finance the activity of terrorist activities in France and abroad." Although Hassan Baouchi's original story of the robbery was not believed when he reported it, police had no evidence on which to detain him. The French authorities believe Hassan Baouchi and his brother Mustapha are linked to the Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group, blamed for bombings in Casablanca last year that killed 45 people.

Link

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