The Shoebat Foundation’s Walid Shoebat has a very uniquely qualified take on the recent French jihadist murders. Below is Part I. Part II will be posted by Noon EST on March 29th so be sure to check back…
WAS MERAH A LONE (JIHADIST) RANGER? – PART 1
By Walid Shoebat
Was French Jihadist, Muhammad Merah a lone wolf? Who was he associated with and what are their goals and aspirations? Answering the second question will give us the answer to the first question.
After two of the paratroopers were of North African origin, rampant and prevailing speculation was that the killings were the work of a far-right extremist. These reports influenced my thinking as well but I should have known better, especially after the shooting at the Jewish school; a trail with such clues should lead to an Islamist.
LONE WOLF? THE EXCUSES
France’s Jihadist Shooter Was No Lone Wolf
. Skeptics have dismissed the claim, saying al Qaeda barely functions anymore but Merah was no “lone wolf” and his weapons did indeed bear the imprint of al-Qaeda crash course training. Most people are unaware that the first manual for al-Qaeda training came from a double agent for the CIA – Egyptian Ali Muhammad – who facilitated for al-Qaeda in the United States, was ultimately caught and found guilty but, amazingly, never sentenced.
What the media does is, at times, evil. I got linked to Anders Breivik while Merah was quickly alienated and identified as a lone wolf. I, like Merah, was also in jail; I was recruited in the Mascubiyeh in 1976. Yet, the liberal media actually goes to the lengths of labeling me a fraud by claiming I was never a terrorist.
How about Andrew Ibrahim, the son of an NHS consultant in Bristol who was jailed for planning a suicide bomb attack. Was he simply crazy? Was Roshonara Choudhry, who radicalized herself over the Internet in her bedroom and then attempted to murder Labour MP Stephen Timms at his constituency surgery in east London crazy? Was she depressed?
Paradoxically, “experts” are the problem. They claim the best way to stop homegrown terrorism is to prevent racial resentments from festering while completely ignoring the Islamists who are the truly verifiable racists int he first place. The way to stop this is to remove the source; this twisted ideological upbringing needs to be made illegal. Leaders must stop focusing on the explosive acts of bombings and instead identify the root cause – activism. Terrorist training overseas is quick and can happen in just a few weeks with a crash course. Najeebullah Zazi and the would-be Times Square terrorist – Faisal Shahzad – got a crash course.
So did I.
Excuses are already circulating that Merah had served two years in a juvenile prison for robbery and was rejected by French society because of his Algerian background. “He snapped,” say friends. After prison, he was completely cut off from reality, said his lawyer. Notice that inherent in this narrative is an implication that Merah is the victim, that he’s not responsible.
In reality, Merah was practically a prince in French jihadist circles. His mother is married to the father of Sabri Essid, a leading member of the Toulouse radical milieu, who was captured in Syria in 2006. Were these people crazy?
Was Hitler crazy?
The media is making excuses for pure evil. Essid and another Frenchman were running an al Qaeda safe house in Syria for fighters going to Iraq. Were they crazy? Did they “snap” because they were cut off from society?
There should be a paddy wagon waiting outside the window of anyone who believes that.
In a 2009 trial that came to be known in the press as “Brothers for Iraq,” the siblings and six others were convicted in France of conspiracy for terrorist purposes. Essid was sentenced in 2009 to five years imprisonment.
Familial contacts were instrumental in setting up Merah’s jihadist contacts which helped to facilitate his travels to South Asia; the Pakistani Taliban and the Uzbek Islamic Movement trained Merah to become a killer (Le Monde reports).
In 2010, Merah was captured in Afghanistan and handed over to the French government. Yet, French media report that he was able to return to Northwest Pakistan in 2011.
French police said that Merah was under periodic surveillance in recent months but that he slipped through the cracks; he never could have accomplished what he did without help from a network.
In executing his attacks, Merah did everything according to the jihadist textbook:
1—During 2010 he visited Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Jordan. He then went to Jerusalem via Allenby Bridge for an odyssey that lasted a few weeks and was caught by the Israelis for carrying a knife. Who were his accomplices in Jerusalem? I myself had contacts in Jerusalem from the al-Mughrabi family and there are Algerians and Moroccans in Jerusalem. I, too, was recruited in prison at the Mascubiyeh – unless you listen to the liberal media, which has a vested interest in discrediting me for reasons illustrated by what I have just explained.
2—He made sure he would die a martyr’s death that would be shown on television screens around the world.
3—He murdered with a video camera strapped to his body, making him a star and director of his own tragically epic, non-fiction, horror film.
4—He told journalists his videos would soon be uploaded. In the attack at the Jewish school Monday morning, Merah held a little girl by her hair while he paused to reload his gun. He then shot her. In a recording found in his apartment he tells another victim, a soldier: “You kill my brothers, I kill you.” This is theater.
The Internet was his friend. “I have changed my life . . . on video,” said one of his last tweets (in French) during the siege.
5—His account ID featured a black knight on a horse holding high the flag of jihad.
6—He belonged to a network of radical Islamist movements.
THEIR GOAL
For its logo, Fursan Al-‘Izza uses Al-Qaeda’s well-known “black flag” and is ideologically aligned with the worldwide Shari’a movement, calling for the Islamization of Western states and societies by “implementing Shari’a law,” “exalting the word of Allah,” “abolishing democratic states,” and “replacing them with Islamic regimes.”
There are hundreds of hours of Fursan Al-‘Izza videos that can be found on YouTube.
Fursan Al-‘Izza’s spokesman is Abu Hamza, aka Mohamed Achamlane. He is fluent in both Arabic and French. He was set to stand trial on June 24, 2011, for incitement and for publicly trampling a copy of the French Penal Code, apparently in response to Koran burnings spurred by American pastor, Terry Jones. Is Jones responsible for Hamza’s outburst?
These groups work together with other Islamist groups like Jama’at Al-Tawheed, Sharia4Belgium and Sharia4UK (Anjem Choudhary’s group). I met Choudhary in Ireland and debated on Irish T.V. as well as from the U.S. on Aramaic TV.
Anjem Choudhary and Abu Imran were arrested en route to Paris, as were 19 hijab-clad women on their way to the Place de la Nation. One of these women was smuggling an “illicit weapon.”[15]
In one demonstration, they wanted to hoist the Islamic black banner atop the Elysée Palace.
“Belgian Islamist Sheikh Abu Imran can be seen in videos at the Atomium Monument in Brussels saying: Our Flag Will Soon Be Flying on Top of All the Palaces in Europe Until We Reach the White House.” (December 14, 2011)