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| Europe |
| French train attacker: An extremist who moved around Europe |
| 2015-08-24 |
| [ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Moroccan suspect in the attack on a high-speed train as it travelled between Amsterdam and Gay Paree had lived in Spain and briefly in Belgium and spent time in Syria, according to intelligence services. A picture began to emerge of 25-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El Khazzani, who was last seen in pictures on social media on the floor of the train with his arms tied behind his back after three American passengers tackled him as he fired a gun and carried a blade. Chris Norman, a British businessman who also helped subdue him, said he was small, thin and not visibly very strong. Khazzani's case also illustrates the near-impossible task that authorities in Europe face in keeping tabs on hundreds of turbans, many of whom have returned from Syria after fighting for the Islamic State ...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. Spanish intelligence services had flagged up to their French counterparts as long ago as February 2014 that he was an Islamic turban. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that information led to him being placed on a list "so that we could locate him if he ever came on to French soil". The minister said Khazzani "lived in Spain in 2014 then in Belgium in 2015". A source close to the inquiry said: "This man lived in Belgium, got on a train in Belgium with weapons that he had undoubtedly acquired in Belgium, and he had identity papers from Spain." His Spanish residency permit gave him access to the 26 European countries that make up the visa-free Schengen zone. "He was able to move around freely," the source said. Khazzani caught the attention of security services in each of the countries he visited. In Spain, he was said to have been heard calling for jihad in fiery ...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob... speeches in mosques in the southern town of Algesiras. He also had a reputation for dealing drugs. A Spanish anti-terrorist source told AFP: "He lived for seven years in Spain, first in Madrid and then in Algesiras, from 2007 to March 2014 when he moved to La Belle France." "Once he was in La Belle France, he then travelled to Syria, before returning to La Belle France," the Spanish source said. At the beginning of 2014, Madrid had tipped off French intelligence that Khazzani was about to enter La Belle France, but his location was never pinpointed. "The French say they had no more information about him until May 10, 2015," another source said. On that date, they were informed by their German counterparts that Khazzani was about to fly from Berlin to the Turkish city of Istanbul, a French intelligence official told AFP. Soon afterwards, Spanish authorities told La Belle France that he had moved to Belgium. Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said he was "known" to the country's intelligence services. Yet Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said in a TV interview Saturday that the information about him was sketchy at best. "There was no material proof or concrete evidence that allowed us to find him, to know exactly when he lived in Belgium. He seemed to be someone who travelled around within Europe." On Friday, Khazzani boarded the packed train in Brussels carrying an arsenal of a Kalashnikov rifle, an automatic pistol, ammunition and a blade. It appears that only the intervention of the Americans, two of whom were servicemen, prevented a bloodbath. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 "This man lived in Belgium, got on a train in Belgium with weapons that he had undoubtedly acquired in Belgium, and he had identity papers from Spain." Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I thought most European countries have pretty strict gun control. Is that the kind of gun control Obama wants? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2015-08-24 12:28 |
| #1 No, no. You've got it all wrong. He was no radical. He was just a poor, marginalized, hungry immigrant. He happened to find an AK-47 in a park, (plus several loaded magazines, a handgun, and a box cutter). So he decided to ask the nice people on the train for some food. Just ask his lawyer. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2015-08-24 09:55 |