Yup till 3 days back they were pretty certain that he was in Syria, think this also confirms that they were plotting another attack in Paris which if it had been successful with so much police and media presence would have been absolutely disastrous for Paris.
Paris terror attacks on Friday 13th
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Yup till 3 days back they were pretty certain that he was in Syria, think this also confirms that they were plotting another attack in Paris which if it had been successful with so much police and media presence would have been absolutely disastrous for Paris.
No, they had no idea where he was, his last known location was in Greece.
Well, from a good news perspective you'd doubt there would be any more high profile targets hiding in France as you'd think they'd spread around Europe if they were trying to hide in plain sight.
But given he was hiding in France it does suggest that there might be more cells. Although given that this cell was apparently preparing for an imminent attack suggests that he may have then moved on afterwards. I doubt he'd have been part of the attack himself. So the question is where would he then go? To another cell in France? Or tried to go to a different country?
He isn't the only one and as long as criminality exists the terrorists will have a way to hide and move everywhere in Europe, they just need to pass the Greek, Bulgarian or Romanian boarders, which isn't very hard.
Do you happen to have a source for this? Thanks
No doubt about it. They confirmed it was him via fingerprint.
The French PM also released a statement.
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I was actually not convinced that they told the public the truth when they said after the attack they believe he's in Syria.
That's not my point. Lets say the police raid hadn't occurred, it seems likely that he wouldn't have been involved in the rumoured business center attack himself as he's too important. So therefore he had to move away from the apartment before the attack occurred. So therefore where would he be going? Would he move across Europe or would he move to another cell / safe house in France? Given that the borders are far more heavily defended since the first Paris attack you'd think he would have to have stayed in France which implies that there's another Cell or Safe House in France he would have gone too.
It isn't much but:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/abdelhamid-abaaoud-paris-attacks_5649ea89e4b045bf3defd9f1
They located his phone and laptop in Greece in January, though he said in a video that he was in Brussel in February.
sadly so . the western fairy tales somewhat saved their image with the reform ,and sell religion as a guidance in life not as a law . but then we have the sad ones to , who get exploited and defined by their belief like the penticostal and jehova , they carry the same burden .
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They also wanted to confirm via DNA analysis and compare it against the his DNA sample Belgium has. I have no idea how long this takes.
So where does a decent, god-fearing Muslim living in the Western world stand while witnessing a nearly unbridled "Western," "Christian" terrorism in their Middle East and Afghanistan homelands by way of massive, "illegal", devastating invasions by their armies and deadly air power, historical political meddling and political border drawing, corporate take over of raw materials that all leads to a wealth drain, unintended genocidal numbers of death and displacement, civil wars and the logical rise of a deadly radical response, however tiny it may be. Not to mention, the West´s need for industrial spew to power their socio economic wealth and way of life that is kicking off climate change for the worse in their homelands, acerbating an already untenable situation?
What do you say to those who just refuse to "take it on the chin, son, turn the other cheek and bend over while you´re at it."
Exactly. Works potentially both ways: For the guy himself and for the public.
a wonderful message Sultan.
Some expert think that ISIS sent him in France knowing that he could die. They probably don't care much about him, there is a french in Syria that could replace him. As for your point the terrorists had three other places and that's just the ones they booked, there is plenty of criminals, potential terrorists or sympathizer that could have helped them.
Thanks. While this can be true, it seems to be not confirmed yet. I'm sure we'll learn about him and others over time.
I hope there's enough honour in criminals to not help people like him. I guess given that his cousin was part of the attack it could have been his last hurrah so to speak.
They didn't knew who he was, the prosecutor said that someone gave them a tip monday, tip that they checked. I think that someone talked because someone has been "shocked" by Friday.
Maybe, but my point was more in the overall context of things about how such a wanted man was able to get into France and mastermind a massive attack without getting caught. Most sources indicate that the current catch was based on the phones recovered from the Friday bomb sites so we will never know how much French intelligence knew about this prior to Friday.
Honour in criminal? Criminals only care about their business, they will do anything as long as they benefit from it.
Don't think that's true at all at least not in the UK. Our criminals do have a kind of moral code, for example they make a persons life a misery if they're involved in any kind of child molesting story. It would be the same scenario if they suspect them of being a terrorist at least I hope anyway. Perhaps just being naive.
You used the only exception, childs. For the rest, criminals will sell arms and provide shelter to anyone able to pay and who isn't an absolute idiot.
Edit: And even then criminals organize child exploitation.
I posted an article from the Telegraph the other day about how poor the entry/exit checks are for those entering and leaving Schengen. People with EU passports aren't checked through the automated system that is supposed to weed out wanted suspects. So he likely came and went through a country in the eastern part of the EU where the border patrol only do cursory checks. So not only is there free movement within Schengen, there's free movement inside and out of it for people with EU passports.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...763/terror-checks-jihadists-syria-europe.html
Absolutely certain he was, and was known to be, in Paris all along. The news can be very useful for police in cases like this.
As we know there will be a myriad of reasons. I thought this article was quite good at answering your question. Those joining ISIS are generally people who don't take much interest in their local Mosques and community activities, prayers etc...This pleases me.
As usual
Most people know that ISIS are as representative of Islam as the KKK are of Christianity. However, ISIS have got themselves into a far more powerful position and whilst low in % numbers there is a worrying attraction for disaffected Western raised Muslim youth. I'd be interested in your views as to why this is? While it is easy to blame religion (and it isn't totally unconnected) in my experience people only seek out belonging to such extremist groups when other factors push them towards extremism e.g. Northern Ireland. Therefore the logical response to that is more integration and inclusion but recent events suggest that the opposite is likely. Which, if I've answered my own question, means that ISIS are winning as we are doing what they want
Did you see Walid Ali's viral video from our The Project program? The bloke always speaks sense and I've talked to him a few time by email. Top bloke.
https://www.facebook.com/theprojecttv/
Why Do People Join ISIS? The Psychology Of A Terrorist
http://www.ibtimes.com/why-do-people-join-isis-psychology-terrorist-1680444
When Andre Poulin, a Canadian who converted to Islam, first appeared on YouTube in Syria last year, he said his family didn’t understand why he had moved to the country to fight with other jihadists against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Allah, he said during his video message, had pulled him to Syria. Poulin was just one of several Westerners to join the Islamic State, which at the time was just a small group of extremists vying for power. Now the Islamic State (also called ISIS) has obtained millions of dollars in new weaponry and is gaining more followers like Poulin, pledging allegiance to a group so barbaric that even al-Qaida has denounced it.
“We tend to think they are crazy,” John Horgan, a psychologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Terrorism and Security Studies, said. “Because of what terrorists do, we assume that can be explained via the pathology of those people, but trying to explain terrorism as mental illness is misleading.”
The recent beheadings of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff set off a wave of fury on social media and forced Western leaders to publicly address ISIS’ barbarity. At the same time, news broke that dozens of young men -- neighbors, sons, friends, from places like London and Minnesota -- had left their homes to join the group.
Horgan is one of the few psychologists in the U.S. who study the minds of terrorists. In the more than 20 years he has been researching the topic, he said he had never seen a message by a member of a terrorist organization as compelling as Poulin’s.
In the video message, which ISIS later used in a propaganda video, Poulin explained why he had joined the Sunni militant group. “Before I come here to Syria, I had money, I had a family, I had good friends. It wasn’t like I was some anarchist or somebody who just wants to destroy the world and kill everybody. I was a regular person,” Poulin, who later began calling himself Abu Muslim, said in the message. “We need the engineers, we need doctors, we need professionals. Every person can contribute something to the Islamic State.”
“Very often we see radicals decide they want to become a terrorist turn away at the last minute, but [Poulin’s] message hit the nail on the head, which is to say there is a road for everyone. It makes radicalization and recruitment much easier,” Horgan said. “It is an equal opportunity organization. It has everything from the sadistic psychopath to the humanitarian to the idealistic driven.”
As far as foreign fighters are concerned, Horgan said, they are driven to join ISIS by the need to “belong to something special.”
“They want to find something meaningful for their life,” he said. “Some are thrill seeking, some are seeking redemption.”
For many, the only way to learn about ISIS is through the news, or through social media. It is not often we hear honest accounts of why people join terrorist organizations, Max Abrahms, an expert on terrorism from Northeastern University, said.
“If you ask terrorists why they joined an organization after they have been in it, they will pair it with the official line of the group,” Abrahms said. “But in reality they don’t join the group for that reason.”
For the members of ISIS, joining the group means promoting the creation of an Islamic caliphate and ridding it of infidels. Last month Vice Media gained exclusive access to some ISIS fighters. In a documentary, Vice interviewed Iraqi and Syrian children who said they wanted to become part of ISIS so they could kill infidels.
No one knows exactly how many fighters ISIS has; estimates vary anywhere between 10,000 to 40,000. The majority of them come from Middle Eastern countries, particular Iraq and Syria, but about 2,300 are foreigners.
ISIS has been particularly successful in recruiting its members through social media. In that sense, Horgan said, there is a "truly global appeal of ISIS" that is new. "They have become so adept at social media that they are reaching out to disaffected individuals on a global scale," he said.
When al-Qaida first began to form under Osama Bin Laden, members of the organization were recruited from communities that already had a large presence in the organization. They were then taught and essentially radicalized in the infamous madrasas, partnered with a mentor, and eventually worked their way up in the ranks of the organization.
Today, terrorist organizations including ISIS rely heavily on Twitter and Facebook to reach out to potential recruits -- those who are friends or family with someone already affiliated with the organization. From most of the terrorism research available, Abrahms said, those who join terrorist groups like ISIS are the most "ignorant people with respect to religion and they are generally the newest members to the religion."
"They would probably fail the most basic test on Islam," Abrahms said.
There is still a lot we don't know about ISIS members, Horgan said. We only ever see the end products like the beheadings and the mass executions. "The commission of those kinds of acts takes a long process of radicalization and recruitment," he said. "We don’t get to see the gradual radicalization process or the interaction between a leader and a follower. It would work differently depending where the fighter is coming from and how it is getting to the region."
Over the past two weeks, the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Middle East have been working to build an international coalition to fight ISIS. President Obama said at the NATO summit Thursday that one of the ways the coalition would stop the threat of the Sunni militant group was to cut off its recruitment from Western countries.
"We are struggling to control the stem that recruits to ISIS," Horgan said. "It is important to look at accounts of individuals that have become disallusioned as a result of joining ISIS. It is key to preventing the next generation from joining."
For practical reasons it wouldn't make a lot of sense to be in Paris all along, He is from Molenbeek where he apparently organized most of his recruiting, so he was probably in Belgium a lot, while visiting France and going back to Irak/Syria.
I mean in the last week or so.
German public TV (ARD), which are usually on the more cautious side, refer to a paper which Iraqi intelligence claim to have and that gets currently verified. This paper, if verified, would suggest that 24 people are involved in the attacks, at least 5 of them with the logistics.
That has to be a major worry for all European countries and what has also been evident here is that there was a lack of coordination between the various European intelligence agencies. If you are going to have open borders then a much more coordinated network is needed.
I don't think they knew, they had good hope because the woman that blew herself up was supposed to be his cousin and they said that it was her that they followed to the appartment.
I dunno, these people did murder teenagers, the disabled, women etc. They kill with no rules that's the point so I don't think it's as simple as that. But who the feck knows, I cling on to the belief that even Criminals wouldn't help people like this. As I say, perhaps i'm being naive.
I'm surprised they announced he's been killed, you'd think from an Intelligence point of view you'd want his identity unknown. It's a bit like telling someone on a Poker table that you have pocket aces. I guess its more to do with reassuring the population.
I understand, an ex Police officer that worked at the time of the French connection at Marseille, explained that it was a myth mainly created by the Cinema and television, there is no code, there is just people with dubious moral senses, some are more "respectable" but among criminals you will find absolute sickos who only care about them.
I mean just think about the fact that the terrorists bought the AKs and the explosives on the UE soil probably in France or Belgium, they bought them from criminals.
Well we don't exactly know how they got the weaponry. But yes, I guess the people who do sell weaponry don't give a shit. But they aren't exactly known for smuggling people in/out of the country either. But I do see your point with the bolded part.
Most people in the UK are from the Indian sub-continent and are naturally very passive. We just want to live peacefully and avoid confrontations.
Organized crime - gun runners and people smugglers/human traffickers are often natural allies.
It shows the extent to which this has occupied my thoughts over the last few days that I dreamt about this last night. In my dream, they said on the news that your man Abaaoud chopped off his finger and gave it to the girl who blew herself up in order to cover his escape. He then went on to cause a load more hassle (I think at one stage he was riding an elephant down St Patrick St. in Cork).
Now they're saying they identified him by fingerprint? Hmmmm...
Now they're saying they identified him by fingerprint? Hmmmm...
@Sultan, aren't you suppose to emulate the life of Muhammad to perfection (or as close as possible?) and where does this leave you with his calls to wage war, subdue the people of the book until they pay taxes, etc. Do you basically have to actively, consciously reject those texts and declare them invalid?