Suspect in France Shootings Seen as Homegrown Militant
By DAN BILEFSKY and MAÏA de la BAUME
NYT
PARIS — For European law enforcement officials, Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old suspect in the killing of seven people in southwestern France, represents the kind of insidious terrorist threat that they fear most: a homegrown militant consumed by visceral grievances who identifies with Al Qaeda but operates on his own.
“He appears to be part of the new generation of Islamic terrorists who act alone, abetted by jihadi Web sites and their own anger,” said Jean-Louis Bruguière, a former French counterterrorism judge and expert on European terrorism.
On Thursday, as a stunned nation grappled with its deadliest terrorist attack since 1995, a portrait emerged of a disturbed and volatile man who was known to domestic intelligence, having been put on a watch list several years ago. Mr. Merah remained in his apartment block in Toulouse, surrounded by hundreds of police officers.
He operated on the fringes of French society, a soft-spoken and alienated youth who railed about the plight of the Palestinians and engaged in petty crimes such as purse snatching.
It was during one of his stints in prison that Mr. Merah, a French citizen of Algerian descent, became politicized and later traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where, he says, he received training. Interior Minister Claude Guéant said that Mr. Merah told the police on Wednesday that he called himself one of the “mujahedeen” and claimed to be a member of Al Qaeda.
(More here.)
NYT
PARIS — For European law enforcement officials, Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old suspect in the killing of seven people in southwestern France, represents the kind of insidious terrorist threat that they fear most: a homegrown militant consumed by visceral grievances who identifies with Al Qaeda but operates on his own.
“He appears to be part of the new generation of Islamic terrorists who act alone, abetted by jihadi Web sites and their own anger,” said Jean-Louis Bruguière, a former French counterterrorism judge and expert on European terrorism.
On Thursday, as a stunned nation grappled with its deadliest terrorist attack since 1995, a portrait emerged of a disturbed and volatile man who was known to domestic intelligence, having been put on a watch list several years ago. Mr. Merah remained in his apartment block in Toulouse, surrounded by hundreds of police officers.
He operated on the fringes of French society, a soft-spoken and alienated youth who railed about the plight of the Palestinians and engaged in petty crimes such as purse snatching.
It was during one of his stints in prison that Mr. Merah, a French citizen of Algerian descent, became politicized and later traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where, he says, he received training. Interior Minister Claude Guéant said that Mr. Merah told the police on Wednesday that he called himself one of the “mujahedeen” and claimed to be a member of Al Qaeda.
(More here.)
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