Italy: McDonald's jihad foiled

Who would have expected a jihad in the drive-thru line? (McDonald's Italy)

This is the latest in a string of jihadist incidents in Brescia. Note the arrest of the imam, mentioned at the end of the article. Didn't he read all the Qur'an's peaceful teachings? From The Independent, with thanks to LGF:

An apparent attempt to blow up a McDonald's drive-in restaurant in northern Italy was foiled on Sunday but the suspected terrorist died when his car exploded with him strapped inside.
Witnesses said a man, later identified as Moustafa Chaouki, a native of Casablanca, drove his Fiat Tempra into the queue of cars waiting at the restaurant in Brescia, 100km east of Milan, at 10 pm. His car contained four cylinders of kitchen gas, each with a capacity of more than 70 litres.

Police believe he opened the taps of the cylinders, filling the car with gas. Witnesses said he then suddenly opened the driver's door, and the car detonated into a fireball.

A woman in the car directly behind the Fiat, told the daily, Corriere della Sera: "I had just said to my boyfriend, 'Don't you smell something strange?' Then there was the blast. That man didn't even try to get out of the car. He stayed there, immobile in his seat, with one leg out of the door."

About 20 customers were inside the restaurant, and a firefighter told Corriere: "We arrived within three minutes, and it was fortunate that we did because we succeeded in containing the explosion, chilling some of the gas cylinders inside the car."

Otherwise, the unnamed officer added, the cylinders could have exploded, firing lethal metal fragments through the restaurant windows and possibly igniting other cylinders of carbon dioxide belonging to the restaurant which were close to the burning car.

Moustafa Chaouki was born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1968 and was a resident of Brescia. Yesterday the assistant prosecutor of the city, Roberta di Martino, who is also the city's anti-terrorism boss, would only say of the incident: "It was not an accidental occurrence."

Last year, a Palestinian with a Kuwaiti passport, Al Khatib Muhammad, died in his car after it exploded close to a synagogue in the town of Modena, 160 kms south-east of Brescia. The crime is still unsolved.

And prosecutors in Brescia are also investigating an imam linked to the Iraq-based Islamist terror group Ansar-al-Islam, who was arrested one year ago.

Mourad Trabelsi, the former imam of a mosque in the town of Cremona, 50km south-west of Brescia, was arrested in April last year, after being under surveillance by the Brescia authorities for three years.

Investigators believe he helped raise funds for terrorist activities, recruited would-be terrorists and acted as the intermediary between a cell of Italy-based terrorists and international terrorist groups.

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13 Comments

Earl | March 30, 2004 6:11 PM

Hmmm... seems early in the year to have the Darwin Award clinched for 2004. Oh well.

Wild Hare | March 30, 2004 6:29 PM

haha.... whats that smell?

Oh nevermind the burger... seems there is something new on the menu this evening.... I will have my Morrocan well done.. thank you

Elmer | March 30, 2004 7:11 PM

Argentina is about 1/2 Italian, 1/2 Spanish. It is also in an economic freefall. If Italy needs workers, can't it take in these people instead of taking in all these Moroccan jihadis?

willy seaweed | March 30, 2004 8:07 PM

i have come to the conclusion that people get the religion that reflects their character..
,,thus, the arab world 'created' a religion; islam..
which reflects the dominant paradigms of their
nature..

D.C. Watson | March 30, 2004 9:24 PM

An apparent attempt to blow up a McDonald's drive-in restaurant in northern Italy was foiled on Sunday but the suspected terrorist died when his car exploded with him strapped inside.

At McDonald's, this idiot did it all for us. He blew himself up and left the planet in pieces. Some people are just too stupid to even be a terrorist.

D.C. Watson | March 30, 2004 10:29 PM

A challenge to JoJo....We await the compelling moment when you post anything with a hint of intelligence, JoJo.....You're an insulter, a bigot.. a purified racist against all that is sensible. Dodo JoJo

JoeIreland | March 31, 2004 12:24 AM

A McMoustafa Happy Meal!

Priceless.

jimmytheclaw | March 31, 2004 12:30 AM

ok now he probably was mad because he thought it was burger king and got insulted because the infidels didnt make his burger his way

epg | March 31, 2004 2:16 AM

"There was this Christian, Jew, an Muslim in line at Burger King...Well, you know the rest."

All joking aside. Now, we can't even go pick up a burger without the fear of immolation. What's this world coming to? (Yeah, I do know, unfortunately!)

joey - It's totally useless to fling scripture at us. We will only fling some of ours back at you. Exchange of scripture verses won't make either of us change our minds.

They only way we will change our opinion is when and if we see a change in behavior. Action speaks louder than words in this situation. (I can already hear the words Israel and Palestinians rolling off your tongue and emanating out of your keyboard. Once again, WE are not responsible for what happens to THEM. Repeat after me…)

wendy | March 31, 2004 3:46 AM

Elmer, we don't choose them and we certainly don't need them despite what the EU says about Europe needing immigrants to fill the gaps, unemployment is high here, as it is most everywhere else. They come over by the boatloads, unfortunately.

Jay Stevens | March 31, 2004 6:46 AM

Back to Earl's first post: to quote Jerry Pournelle (U.S. author), "Just think of it as evolution in action."

And no one "foiled" anything. Fortunately no one had to.

cubed | March 31, 2004 9:35 PM

Good grief! And to think that until now, about all we had to worry about when going to a fast-food joint was how it was going to damage our cardiac profile, or whether the kid putting the sandwich together had spit on the contents before putting the top bun on. . .

Jay Stevens | April 1, 2004 4:24 AM

"... ok now he probably was mad because he thought it was burger king and got insulted because the infidels didnt make his burger his way"

jimmytheclaw, either that or he was upset because MacD's was a place that unmarried couples (see witnesses) were known to go. Or maybe he was upset because of the reports that MacD's may do away with upsizing.

Or maybe his actions were taken out of context. Or maybe his spiritual adviser worked at a competing restaurant.

cubed, EVERYONE knows that fast food is not good for you.

Seriously, now. This particular incident IS kind of comical - in a grim, black humor sort of way. The outcome, with just a little more competence, could have been very different. And it does illustrate the possibilities of commonly available materials.

jay

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