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Paris jihad murderer was incited to wage jihad at mosque in Chartres

Nov 16, 2015 10:36 am By Robert Spencer

A mosque. Still, Western officials refuse to admit or investigate the Islamic character of all this, which means they will never understand the jihadis’ motives or goals, or be able to counter them effectively.

I am from ISIS

“Who is Paris attacker Ismael Omar Mostefai?,” by Scott Bronstein, Nic Robertson and Mick Krever, CNN, November 15, 2015:

Chartres, France (CNN)The quiet of this bucolic French town, known for centuries for its historic and majestic medieval cathedral, has been shattered by the discovery that a former resident helped carry out one of the worst terrorist attacks in French history.

Ismael Omar Mostefai, 29, lived here quietly for years, before he was identified as one of the attackers who brutally massacred dozens of Paris concertgoers with a Kalashnikov before blowing himself in the crowd with a suicide bomber’s vest….

So how did Mostefai, previously unknown to the general public, become radicalized to do such a thing?

“Yes, that is what shocks people,” said Mayor Jean-Pierre Gorges, who was the first person to publicly identify Mostefai, by name, in a Facebook entry late Saturday. The mayor is a member of Parliament and is a well-known figure in the region.

“We have someone who was radicalized in a town that’s practically the capital in France of Catholicism — and, you saw the cathedral, one of the world’s greatest historic monuments.”

Francois Molins, the lead French prosecutor in the investigation, said the assailant “was identified thanks to his finger, and fingerprints.” He said Mostefai, however, had been known to authorities as a possible threat.

Molins said in a press conference that Mostefai had an “S” file on him for years, which means investigators believe he had been “radicalized” in some way, though it was not clear whether he would act on his radicalization.

Surveillance files have been opened on more than 5,000 suspected Islamic extremists in France, but security services only have the manpower and resources to monitor a small fraction of these numbers 24/7. About 1,000 have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight jihad or are in transit there — and those are just the ones French authorities know about….

Mostefai had become radicalized at a small mosque on the edge of Chartres, in the neighborhood known as Lucé, the mayor said.

Gorges said he had been informed that Mostefai some four to five years ago was “radicalized” at the mosque located on “Paradise Street.” The mosque is a small, unimposing building looking more like a former house in a suburban neighborhood.

But officials at the mosque said the mayor was wrong.

Standing in a throng of French reporters, Karim Benaya said that he had no knowledge of Mostefai, and that neither he nor his family were members or attended.

“It’s completely false,” said Benaya, the vice president of the mosque association. Standing beside him was Abdallah Benali, the president of the association, who agreed.

But the two men said that they have been at the mosque only since 2013. And the mayor said he was told Mostefai had become more extreme in the years before that, and that it had been because of a “visiting imam.”

“In greater Chartres — there’s a number of places of worship,” the mayor said. “And there are some which are run correctly. But there are others where there are Imams who try to convert people — which leads to radicalization.”

Prosecutors could not be reached to answer the mayor’s claims. But much of what Gorges said had been detailed publicly on Saturday by the lead prosecutor, and numerous French publications reported having numerous sources on the question.

In the small, neat suburban neighborhood where Mostefai had lived for years, before apparently leaving around 2012, neighbors preferred not to be identified. They told reporters that Mostefai had not been the only terrorist in that area.

A neighbor said another jihadi had gone to Syria to fight and had been killed. The two had, he told CNN, overlapped in the area, and could have provided another avenue for “radicalization.”

The neighbor did not provide the alleged neighbor’s name, and CNN could not independently confirm the details of that second jihadi. (But they may have referred to Sofiane Sankawi, who was from the area and whose death in Syria as a fighter earlier this year was widely reported.)

Not considered especially religious as child

Mostefai’s childhood home is in Courcouronnes, a suburb of Paris, about 40 miles from Chartres. It is considered a lower- to middle-class area, though it is not known for any serious radicalism or extremism.

Mostefai was a “normal” child who played soccer and sported long hair as a teenager, two of his childhood friends told CNN.

Dem, a childhood friend who wants to be identified only by his first name out of privacy concerns, described Mostefai as not especially religious.

The friend, wearing a sweatshirt, sneakers and Islamic thawb, or robe, spoke on a manicured street outside the mosque in the Courcouronnes, where Mostefai was born, according to the Paris prosecutor.

Mostefai went to the mosque south of Paris’ city center “every now and then” — sometimes with his parents, sometimes alone, Dem said.

He was the middle of three brothers and had two sisters, according to Dem and the mosque director. The bomber moved to Chartres while an adolescent, his friend said.

It had been four or five years, Dem said, since he’d last seen Mostefai.

Another man in Courcouronnes, described the bomber as a “very, very, very close friend,” though it had also been several years since he’d last seen him.

“I am shocked,” Abdel Afid said. “I don’t understand.”…

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Filed Under: Featured, France, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Jihad in the West, mosques Tagged With: Ismael Omar Mostefai


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Comments

  1. Jay Boo says

    Nov 16, 2015 at 10:54 am

    God bless America
    Muslim Obama is such a willful anti-American disgrace.
    Obama was very passionate (our responsibility) on refugees at G20 summit.
    Was attack in Paris timed so Obama could play his game in Muslim Turkey?

    Obama does not care about the murdered children of Paris.

    • Huck Folder says

      Nov 16, 2015 at 6:51 pm

      Tangential Topic:

      Could Snowden and all the other bleeding heart ‘leakers’
      be charged as accessories before the fact?

      By leaking secrets of intercepts, did they not ENABLE
      the bad guys?

  2. Mark Rosenthal says

    Nov 16, 2015 at 11:21 am

    Islam by its political/legal/military wings much more than a religion therefore not a candidate for religious protection

    • Dr. Divinity says

      Nov 17, 2015 at 10:56 pm

      Islam is a CULT…. when the world powers recognize this…then islam will go under

      FEAR IS THE CATALYST THAT FUELS ISLAM AND THE KORAN IS THE VEHICLE THAT DRIVE IT.

  3. el cid says

    Nov 16, 2015 at 11:32 am

    Robert, the positive development here, regardless of the actual content, is the focus on the mosque in the news reporting.

    Assuming that the average person is not an idiot, people will connect the dots and wonder why all the denial.

    Eventually, real explanations will be demanded.

  4. sahani says

    Nov 16, 2015 at 12:55 pm

    When you start believing a muslim you are in trap. . Book quran teaches all his followers Cheat and lie to all Kafirs.

    • Jeremiah says

      Nov 16, 2015 at 4:40 pm

      They will only deceive you while you are alive. They also rape, torture, enslave, terrorize, extort and mutilate. They have lost their soul like zombies. What goes through a muslim mother’s mind when she hears the scream of her daughter being mutilated by strangers? Is there a field of psychiatry that deals with that?

  5. Jeremiah says

    Nov 16, 2015 at 4:33 pm

    Are they refugees escaping Islam or are they militants that have funds to build mosques but no funds for their families? We know the answer don’t we?

    We can prevent further attacks by raiding mosques, jailing Imams and identifying those who teach the Koran. Then we don’t need to respond, we don’t need to fight it and we don’t need to defeat it. There is no reason for people to continue to live in fear except for Political Correctness. There is no need to fight all muslims, only those who object to the closure of mosques. There is no need to kill on a large scale, only those who are willing to defend Islam. It is Islam and its teaching which is our enemy! All this talk about trying to find terrorists is nonsense. All this fear is misplaced. Only Political Correctness can kill us. No need to “flag” anybody on a terror watch list. Bring them all in for questioning. Just close the mosques! The mosques contain the terror entire network that we are looking for. No terror network exists outside the mosques, so why are we avoiding mosques?

    • f c king says

      Nov 17, 2015 at 11:17 am

      You are correct. The radicalization and inspiration come from the clerics in the mosques. They read the kpran, hadiths , and other islamic holy rule books, and pass on interpretations to the masses. They teach that holy Mo is above all others, and his behavior is to be copied in every way, that this is the last word from some god, and that it can not change.

      Target every cleric in every mosque that in cites supremacist behavior in any way. This is political, and deserves no protection under “freedom to worship “. Islam is a supremacist political movement, with dark ages religious rules. It has no place in the civilized world in its present form.

  6. ? says

    Nov 16, 2015 at 6:46 pm

    Liberals: “You’ve got jihad going on here, I’m shocked, shocked that jihad is going on around here, (Muslim tells quick story about all the women they will have for defending terrorists)….thank you (gives subtle thumbs up”

  7. Islam :- the religion of killers says

    Nov 16, 2015 at 8:32 pm

    Chartres, France The quiet of this bucolic French town,

    This is a very good place to start the demolishing of Mosks ……..

    It would be interesting to demolish the mosk then undertake a referendum, very very interesting to guage the French citizen’s reaction ……

  8. Angemon says

    Nov 16, 2015 at 8:41 pm

    Gorges said he had been informed that Mostefai some four to five years ago was “radicalized” at the mosque located on “Paradise Street.” The mosque is a small, unimposing building looking more like a former house in a suburban neighborhood.

    But officials at the mosque said the mayor was wrong.

    Standing in a throng of French reporters, Karim Benaya said that he had no knowledge of Mostefai, and that neither he nor his family were members or attended.

    Isn’t that the standard reaction? Plus blaming foreign, visiting imams? Who invites them without knowing what they preach?

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