To understand why this man wanted to kill Christians, watch this:Fox News—A suspected Islamic terrorist's plans to mount attacks on French churches were thwarted when he accidentally shot himself and called an ambulance, leading to the discovery of loaded guns, bulletproof vests and chilling notes about his intended targets, authorities said Wednesday.
French police believe the 24-year-old Algerian native was planning an imminent attack Sunday on one or more French churches in Paris when he shot himself, France’s top security official announced Wednesday. The suspect, who was not named, is a computer science student who was flagged as a risk by security officials last year, said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. He is also accused in the death of a young mother.
Sources told AFP that the suspect was found with a bullet it his leg and said he was wounded in some sort of dispute. The man was treated for a leg wound and remained hospitalized on Wednesday.
Police who arrived at the scene found a blood trail leading to his car, with loaded guns, bulletproof vests and notes about potential targets inside.
Inside the car, authorities discovered flashing blue lights that can fix magnetically to car roofs and orange “Police” armbands used by French plainclothes officers, RTL radio reports, according to France 24.
"Detailed documents that were also found established beyond doubt that the individual was planning an imminent attack, probably on one or two churches," Cazeneuve said, according to Reuters.
In the man's apartment, in southeastern Paris, more weapons were found as well as evidence of ties to Islamic extremism, the official said. There was no immediate evidence that the suspect had direct ties to any organized groups, the official added. (Continue Reading.)
To understand why an eight-year-old boy has such a low view of non-Muslims, watch this:PARIS (Associated Press) — Police detained and questioned an 8-year-old boy from the south of France who claimed to support the men who attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, drawing criticism Thursday that France's measures to prevent people from defending terrorism have gone overboard.
Dozens of people have been arrested and accused of defending terrorism since the attacks, with some already drawing yearslong prison terms in special expedited court proceedings. But the child from the southern city of Nice appears to be the youngest by far.
The boy declared "The French must be killed. I am with the terrorists. The Muslims did well, and the journalists got what they deserved," Fabienne Lewandowski, deputy director for public security in the Alpes-Maritimes region, told BFM television. She said the child also refused to take part in the national minute of silence for the victims on Jan. 9. (Continue Reading.)
For more on jihad, watch this:Associated Press—An attacker with a knife hidden in his bag attacked three soldiers on an anti-terror patrol in front of a Jewish community center in southern France on Tuesday, two police officials said.
Sarah Baron, a police union official in the city of Nice, said the attacker was detained after the attack near the Galeries Lafayette department store. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi said the attacker had an identity card with the name Moussa Coulibaly.
The surname, which is relatively common for families of Malian descent, is the same as that of the man who seized hostages in a kosher supermarket in Paris and gunned down a policewoman last month.
Another police official said the attacker pulled a knife at least 20 centimeters (8 inches) long out of a bag and set upon one of the soldiers, injuring him in the chin. He then swiped two other soldiers — one in the cheek, the other in the forearm — before being apprehended by riot police stationed near the building, which houses the city's Jewish community center.
A manager at the center, who did not want to be identified because she was afraid, confirmed soldiers posted in front of the building were attacked. She said it happened around lunchtime and no one was inside the office.
The attacker, aged about 30, had a record of theft and violence, the official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. His motive was not yet clear, the official added. (Continue Reading.)
AFP—A dozen ex-French soldiers have joined jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria, raising concerns over the possible existence of radical elements within the military, a defence ministry source said Wednesday.
"We estimate at around a dozen the number of former troops who have joined these networks," the source, who wished to remain anonymous, said.
"Our concern is not former soldiers... It's preventing the phenomenon of radicalisation with our forces," the source added.
Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian refused to comment directly on the affair.
"The cases of former soldiers being tempted by jihadism are extremely rare," he told a press conference to announce new anti-terrorism measures in the wake of the recent attacks in Paris.
The military's 1,000-strong internal intelligence unit will get 65 extra staff to help vet and track recruits more closely, the ministry announced.
The army's biggest fear is that rogue soldiers could turn their weapons on their comrades or use their combat and explosives know-how to carry out attacks.
RFI radio reported that most of the soldiers-turned-jihadists, whose ranks included former special forces and Foreign Legion members, had joined the Islamic State group.
One was commanding a group of French recruits that he had trained in northeast Syria, the radio added.
"Others are explosives experts," RFI said, adding that the fighters were mostly in their twenties.
According to L'Opinion newspaper, one combatant had served in the elite 1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment. (Continue Reading.)
To understand why so many converts to Islam decide to wage jihad, watch this:Paris—The mother had her suspicions before her 16-year-old son fled from the southeastern French city of Nice to Syria.
Her son was Christian and popular and liked football and making wood sculptures. But she had seen him change, converting to Islam and falling under the influence of an extremist neighbor, refusing to eat with the family and isolating himself in his room.
Still, the mother of four said, “I didn’t know he was going to leave.”
She has sued the French government over what happened next: Bryan (a pseudonym used in court papers) said he was going to a sleepover, but instead, accompanied by some friends, he went to an airport and boarded a flight to Turkey using his national identification card, eventually making his way to Syria.
“How could they let him leave for Turkey with his ID card? They should have called me,” said the woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Nadine, 39, because of the pending court case.
Nadine said when her son didn’t return the morning after the sleepover, she spoke with neighbors who told her where the youths had gone. She said she contacted police, but they did not take her complaint seriously.
“They listened but I had the impression that they were not really listening,” she said.
Three years ago, an administrative change by the government allowed youths with valid identification to leave the country without a parent’s permission. Since then, dozens of youths have left for Syria via Turkey. (Continue Reading.)
Fox News—A member of Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen said the group directed the massacre at a Paris magazine, hours after near simultaneous raids by French police on Friday killed the two Islamist brothers behind the attack and an ally of theirs.
The raids, conducted at locations 25 miles apart, took out Cherif and Said Kouachi and a suspect in a policewoman's killing who had seized hostages at a Paris grocery on the brothers' behalf, but also left at least four hostages dead, according to authorities and reports from the scene.
The Al Qaeda member on Friday provided to The Associated Press a statement in English saying "the leadership of AQAP directed the operations and they have chosen their target carefully."
There was no independent confirmation of the report.
He said the attack was in line with warnings from the late Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden to the West about "the consequences of the persistence in the blasphemy against Muslim sanctities." (Continue Reading.)
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| Amedy Coulibaly and Girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene |
Fox News—Near-simultaneous raids by French police Friday evening at locations 25 miles apart took out the Islamist brothers behind Wednesday's massacre at a Paris satirical magazine, and a cop-killing ally who had seized hostages at a Paris grocery, demanding police free his jihadist cronies.To understand jihad, watch this:
The lightning-quick strikes ended two tense, hours-long standoffs, one at a printing plant north of the city and the other at a kosher supermarket on Paris' east side, where Reuters reported four hostages were killed. A hostage held north of the city by the brothers, who killed 12 in a commando-style attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, was reportedly freed. The fast-moving developments, signaled by explosions and gunfire at a printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goele, followed by similar sounds at Hypercacher (Hyper Kosher), a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris, brought to a climax a three-day terror ordeal and manhunt involving nearly 90,000 police and military personnel.
Cherif and Said Kouachi, the radicalized French-born slackers whose attack on Charlie Hebdo left two police officers among the dozen dead, were both killed in the first raid. The brothers, 32 and 34, respectively, are believed to have ties to Al Qaeda in Yemen, and military experts who viewed footage of their bloody, late-morning raid on Wednesday said they appeared to be well-trained terrorists. Charlie Hebdo had long angered Muslim radicals with its penchant for publishing cartoon images of Prophet Muhammed.
In Paris, police said Amedy Coulibaly, who is believed to have know the brothers and was suspected of killing Paris Police Officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe Thursday, as she attended to a routine traffic accident in the city, was killed in a raid moments later, ending his supermarket siege. Police had identified him and his longtime girlfriend, Hayat Boumeddiene, as suspects, but her whereabouts were not immediately known.
Coulibaly, 33, and Cherif Kouachi were committed followers of convicted terror kingpin Djamel Beghal, according to Le Monde. (Continue Reading.)
Paris (CNN)—Cherif and Said Kouachi, the two brothers wanted in the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine, have been killed by security forces in a town where they'd been surrounded, a local mayor said.To understand what Islam teaches about dealing with non-Muslims, watch this:
About the same time late Friday afternoon, explosions could be heard around where people were being held hostage in a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris. (Source)
To understand jihad, watch this:PARIS — French police have identified three men as suspects in Wednesday’s massacre of a dozen people at the offices of a satirical weekly newspaper, a brazen attack that set off a massive manhunt amid widespread condemnation of the killings.
According to police and other officials, two of the suspects are French brothers aged 34 and 32 years old from the Paris region, and the third is an 18-year-old from the northeastern city of Reims. There were conflicting reports on whether the teenager was also a French national.
In a late-night telephone interview with CNN, Paris Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman said the three gunmen have been identified and “may have been arrested.” One “may have been prosecuted in the past,” he said, but he did not know the charge.
There was no immediate official confirmation of any arrests in the case.
The Associated Press, citing police officials, named the suspects as Frenchmen Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi. The news agency identified the 18-year-old as Hamyd Mourad. It quoted one official as saying the suspects were linked to a Yemeni terrorist network. (Continue Reading.)
BBC—Gunmen have attacked the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people and injuring seven in an apparent Islamist attack.
A cartoon of Muhammad
Three masked attackers opened fire with assault rifles in the office and exchanged shots with police in the street outside before escaping by car.
The gunmen shouted "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad", witnesses say.
President Francois Hollande said there was no doubt it had been a terrorist attack "of exceptional barbarity".
A major police operation is under way in the Paris area to catch the killers. The number of gunmen was initially reported to be two, but French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve later said they were hunting three "criminals".
Four of the magazine's well-known cartoonists, including its editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier were reported among those killed, as well as two police officers.
Mr Charbonnier, 47, had received death threats in the past and was living under police protection.
French media have named the three other cartoonists killed in the attack as Cabu, Tignous and Wolinski. Reports say the attack took place during the magazine's daily editorial meeting.
Several of the wounded remain in a critical condition.
The satirical weekly has courted controversy in the past with its irreverent take on news and current affairs. It was fire-bombed in November 2011 a day after it carried a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.
The latest tweet on Charlie Hebdo's account was a cartoon of the Islamic State militant group leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Continue Reading.)
Telegraph—An Algerian group linked to Islamic State jihadists has threatened to kill a French hostage within 24 hours unless Paris halts air strikes on the IS in Iraq in a video released on Monday evening.For a brief introduction to Islam's teachings about non-Muslims, watch this:
Jund al-Khilifa (Soldiers of the Caliphate), which has pledged allegiance to IS, said in the video that it carried out a kidnapping on Sunday of a Frenchman in a mountainous region of eastern Algeria.
The hostage, Herve Pierre Gourdel, white-haired and bespectacled, is shown squatting on the ground flanked by two hooded men clutching Kalashnikov assault rifles.
"It is up to Hollande, president of the criminal French state, to halt the attacks on the Islamic State within 24 hours of this statement, otherwise his national Herve Gourdel will have his throat slit," one of his kidnappers says in the video.
Gourdel said in the video he is a native of Nice in southern France who works as a mountain guide, and that he only arrived in Algeria on Saturday. He was seized while hiking with Algerian friends.
In the video, the kidnappers said they are responding to a call from IS, posted just hours earlier, for Muslims to kill citizens of countries taking part in the US-led coalition against the jihadists who have seized of large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
"If you can kill a disbelieving American or European - especially the spiteful and filthy French - or an Australian, or a Canadian or any other disbeliever... including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him," said IS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani.
"Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military," he said in the message, which was released in multiple languages. (Continue Reading.)
For a brief introduction to what Islam teaches about unbelievers, watch this:Newsweek—Two teenage girls have been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to blow up a synagogue in Lyon, French news websites have reported.
According to JSS News and Europe 1, a source from the French security agency the Central Directorate of Homeland Intelligence revealed that two Muslim girls, aged 15 and 17, were arrested in the Tarbes and Venissieux neighbourhoods a week ago, after authorities uncovered a plan to carry out a suicide bombing inside the Great Synagogue of Lyon. They were indicted on August 22nd for conspiracy to commit terrorism.
An unnamed security source also revealed that the two teenagers had never met, but communicated only via social media. “These girls were part of a network of young Islamists who were being monitored by security services,” said the unnamed security source. Security services are becoming increasingly concerned with online radicalisation, particularly following the proliferation of videos created by jihadist groups such as Islamic State. (Continue Reading.)
Newsweek—One in six French citizens sympathises with the Islamist militant group ISIS, also known as Islamic State, a poll released this week found.
The poll of European attitudes towards the group, carried out by ICM for Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya, revealed that 16% of French citizens have a positive opinion of ISIS. This percentage increases among younger respondents, spiking at 27% for those aged 18-24.
A recent Ifop poll placed French president Francois Hollande’s approval rating at just 18%.
The survey also tested attitudes in Britain and Germany and found that 7% of British citizens responded favourably to ISIS. However, UK polling showed an inverse demographic trend to that of France, with support for ISIS rising with age. 4% of 18-24-year-olds saying they either strongly or somewhat support ISIS, compared to 6% of 24-35-year-olds surveyed and 11% of 35-44-year-olds. Positive attitudes to ISIS in Germany showed less divergence, remaining between 3% and 4% for all age groups.
Newsweek’s France Correspondent, Anne-Elizabeth Moutet, was unsurprised by the news. “This is the ideology of young French Muslims from immigrant backgrounds,” she said, “unemployed to the tune of 40%, who’ve been deluged by satellite TV and internet propaganda.” She pointed to a correlation between support for ISIS and rising anti-Semitism in France, adding that “these are the same people who torch synagogues”. (Continue Reading.)
Huffington Post—Eighteen people were arrested for attacks on shops, including a kosher supermarket, a Jewish-owned chemist and a funeral home. Rioters, who carried batons and threw petrol bombs according to eyewitnesses, were yards from the synagogue when they were driven back by riot police who used tear gas.
“They were shouting: ‘Death to Jews,’ and ‘Slit Jews’ throats’,” David, a Jewish sound engineer told The Times. “It took us back to 1938.”
“We called our town 'Little Jerusalem' because we felt at home here,” Laetitia, a longtime Sarcelles resident, told France 24. “We were safe, there were never any problems. And I just wasn't expecting anything like this. We are very shocked, really very shocked."
Roger Cuikerman, head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France told Radio France International: "They are not screaming, 'Death to the Israelis' on the streets of Paris. They are screaming, "Death to the Jews." The community was not just scared, but "anguished."
The government had banned a demonstration planned in Paris for Saturday, but posters were seen around the area which said “Come equipped with hammers, fire extinguishers and batons" and promised a "raid on the Jewish district”.
France has around half a million Jews, the biggest population in Europe, and around five million Muslims.
The Society for the Protection of the Jewish Community's figures suggest that anti-Jewish violence is seven times higher than in the 1990s, and 40% of racist violence is against Jews, despite them making up just 1% of the population.
In March 2012, a shooting spree by Mohammed Merah in the south of France left three French soldiers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi dead. The gunman claimed a connection to al Qaeda.
More than a thousand Jews have made aliyah (the term used when Jews immigrate to Israel) in the past 10 days, according to the Israeli government. (Continue Reading.)
Fox News—Recent violence in Gaza raised tensions in France Sunday as pro-Palestinian protesters tried to force their way into a Paris synagogue with bats and chairs, then fought with security officers who blocked their way, according to police and a witness.
Sunday's unrest by a few dozen troublemakers came at the end of sizable protest in the French capital demanding an end to Israeli strikes on Gaza and accusing Western leaders of not doing enough to stop them.
France is home to Western Europe's largest Muslim population and largest Jewish community.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said two Paris synagogues had been targeted by unspecified violence that he called "inadmissible." In a statement, he said, "France will never tolerate using violent words or acts to import the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on our soil."
A police spokeswoman said the Don Isaac Abravanel synagogue in eastern Paris was targeted during a service, and worshippers were blocked inside while police pushed protesters back. The spokeswoman said all those inside left safely by Sunday evening.
Aline Le Bail-Kremer watched the incident unfold from her window across the street. She said protesters came from two directions and converged on the synagogue, grabbing chairs from sidewalk cafes and wielding bats as they tried to push past security guards.
Some 150 people were inside for a ceremony honoring three Israeli teens recently killed, said Le Bail-Kremer, a representative of anti-racism group SOS Racisme. (Continue Reading.)
Fox News—French authorities say they foiled an Islamic terrorist plot reportedly targeting the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and a nuclear power plant last year.
The revelation comes as the country unveiled new anti-terror rules which included a proposal to ban terror suspects from leaving the country if it is thought they intend to fight abroad, The Telegraph reported.
French authorities revealed they arrested a 29-year-old Algerian butcher living in southern France June 2013, after they found coded messages between him and a high-ranking Al Qaeda member discussing how “to conduct jihad in the place you are currently,” according to Le Parisien.
The suspect, identified in the newspaper report as Ali M, reportedly said he would target French landmarks including the Eiffel Tower, Louvre and “cultural events that take place in the south of France in which thousands of Christians gather for a month.”
The father of two reportedly had signaled his willingness to travel for training before returning to France to “await your instructions,” the Telegraph reported.
French police say they arrested him a month before he was to travel to Tunisia, and then Algeria for training.
“There are doubtless others on our soil programmed to harm French interests,” French anti-terror judge Marc Trevidic told Le Parisien. (Continue Reading.)
Paris (CNN) -- Ten suspected Islamists were arrested in fresh raids across France on Wednesday morning as the country widens a clampdown on suspected extremists after a deadly shooting spree last month, the Interior Ministry said.
The raids took place in the cities of Roubaix, Lyon, Valence, Pau, Marseille and Carpentras and in the Lot et Garonne region, the Interior Ministry said.
Meanwhile, 13 alleged radicals arrested Friday were placed under formal investigation for "criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist enterprise," and possession and transportation of weapons, officials said.
The formal warning is a point in the French legal system that comes after an arrest and before formal charges are filed.
Nine of the 13 have been jailed, including Forsane Alizza leader Mohamed Achamlane.
The other four were released Tuesday but remain "under judicial control," according to Achamlane's lawyer Philippe Missamou.
On Tuesday, a French prosecutor said the detained radical Muslims were preparing for holy war.
Forsane Alizza and Achamlane were "calling for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in France and calling for the implementation of Sharia law and inciting Muslims in France to unite for the preparation of a civil war," Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.
The group was reportedly linked to Mohammed Merah, who was accused of killing seven people in the south of France in March before police killed him after a 32-hour siege of his apartment in the southwestern city of Toulouse. (Read more.)
Qur’an 9:29—Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
Qur’an 9:111—Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have the garden; they fight in Allah's way, so they slay and are slain.
Qur’an 9:123—O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness.
Qur’an 48:29—Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those who are with him are severe against disbelievers, and merciful among themselves.
PARIS – President Nicolas Sarkozy says police in cities around France have detained 19 people in a crackdown on suspected Islamist extremists.
Sarkozy said on Europe-1 radio Friday that weapons were seized in some of the raids, including AK-47 assault rifles.
He said more such operations are planned.
The raids come after a spate of killings in southern France. A Frenchman who espoused radical Islamist views and said he had links to al Qaida claimed responsibility for the killings. He was killed in a gunfight with police last week. (Source)
