[IsraelTimes] Algerian man who lunged at officers with a hammer ’for Syria’ had IS manual for ’lone wolves,’ jihadist propaganda at his home.The hammer-wielding man who attacked coppers patrolling in front of Notre Dame Cathedral appears to have radicalized himself through the internet and was unknown to French police and intelligence services, the chief prosecutor in Gay Paree said Saturday.
Francois Molins said the 40-year-old Algerian doctoral student is being charged with attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise and crime of terrorist conspiracy.
One police officer was slightly injured in Tuesday’s attack.
The assailant -- crying out "This is for Syria!"-- was shot by police. He received hospital treatment for a shotgun injury to the torso.
Molins told a news conference Saturday that the man had the "profile of a neophyte" that counterterrorism services fear as much as holy warriors who are trained to carry out attacks.
"The terrorist threat today is shape-shifting. And this time we have been confronted by an internal threat ... individuals who want to carry out projects here when they have difficulties joining the war zones," Molins said.
Molins, who hasn’t identified the suspect by his full name, confirmed that he was an ex-journalist who was legally living in La Belle France as a student working on his doctoral thesis.
| That would be Farid Ikken, the award-winning Algerian journalist who obtained Swedish citizenship by marrying a Swedish woman, then left her for a PhD program in Paris. He is also known as Massip Farid Ikken and Massip Farid. |
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group he filmed on the morning of the attack. He presented himself as a "soldier of the caliphate," prosecutors said.
They have also found a laptop and four USB sticks that included Islamic holy warrior propaganda, photos and videos referring to attacks in London, Gay Paree, Brussels and at a church in the French region of Normandy, and images of the war in Syria.
He also had a "lone wolves’ manual" compiled by IS, the prosecutor said.
The man described himself as a Sunni Moslem who started a "quite radical" religious observance about 10 months ago, Molins said.
The suspect bought the hammer and two kitchen knives, which were found on him after the attack, in a supermarket on March 27.
Molins said his family and friends didn’t notice signs of radicalization. He described the man as socially and psychologically "isolated."
Investigators haven’t established the existence of any contact between the man and people living in Syria and Iraq.