It is a scenario that counter-terrorism experts have been warning about
for the past two years: a European citizen who travelled to Syria in
order to join up with jihadist groups returns to Europe in order to
carry out a terrorist attack. It is something we all knew eventually
would become a reality and, more worryingly, knew we could not prevent.
On May 24, a lone gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing an Israeli couple and a French woman before escaping. On May 30, a 29-year old French national by the name of Mehdi Nemmouche was arrested getting off a bus in Marseille after a routine customs search found guns and ammunition in his luggage. They were of the same kind used in the shooting—and with them, reportedly, was a 40-second video claiming responsibility.
It turns out that Nemmouche had travelled previously to Syria and fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (abbreviated to ISIL or ISIS) before returning to his native France. Prior to his Syria trip he served time in a French prison for armed robbery, among other offenses. It was during his stint in prison that he is believed to have become radicalized and there have been reports that he proselytized extremist ideology while he was incarcerated.
Nemmouche has not been convicted of the Jewish Museum shooting yet, but the evidence pointing in his direction, thus far, is fairly damning. Already, debates about “lone wolf” terrorists, prison radicalization and European-Syrian foreign fighters have been revived. The target, a Jewish Museum, should not come as any surprise either, since anti-Semitism is a central part of jihadist ideology.
Read more: The Syrian War Comes Home to Europe - The Daily Beast
On May 24, a lone gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing an Israeli couple and a French woman before escaping. On May 30, a 29-year old French national by the name of Mehdi Nemmouche was arrested getting off a bus in Marseille after a routine customs search found guns and ammunition in his luggage. They were of the same kind used in the shooting—and with them, reportedly, was a 40-second video claiming responsibility.
It turns out that Nemmouche had travelled previously to Syria and fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (abbreviated to ISIL or ISIS) before returning to his native France. Prior to his Syria trip he served time in a French prison for armed robbery, among other offenses. It was during his stint in prison that he is believed to have become radicalized and there have been reports that he proselytized extremist ideology while he was incarcerated.
Nemmouche has not been convicted of the Jewish Museum shooting yet, but the evidence pointing in his direction, thus far, is fairly damning. Already, debates about “lone wolf” terrorists, prison radicalization and European-Syrian foreign fighters have been revived. The target, a Jewish Museum, should not come as any surprise either, since anti-Semitism is a central part of jihadist ideology.
Read more: The Syrian War Comes Home to Europe - The Daily Beast
No comments:
Post a Comment