France Targeted Again
Three jihadists arrested in plot to attack military base and behead the commander.
July 24, 2015
Stephen Brown
America was not the only country last week where Islamic terrorists targeted military personnel for death. While five American servicemen in Chattanooga tragically lost their lives to the worldwide jihad, France was fortunately able to break up a plot to attack a minor military installation and behead the commander before it could be carried out.
Three jihadists, all residents of France, were arrested. One, Ishamel K., 17, was from the “banlieue” (ghetto) of Valenciennes. The other two were Djebril A., 23, and Antoine F., 19, a convert to Islam. A fourth suspect, a 16-year old, was arrested and released. No last names were provided at this point in time in accordance with French law.
The jihadists’ intended target was the French naval signal installation, Fort Bear, in the Pyrenees Mountains in southwestern France, close to the Mediterranean coast. It oversees the sea approaches to the French coast and apparently is one of a chain of such outposts.
Fort Bear was built in the late 1800s and is described as mostly “disused.” Nevertheless, it was reported some commando training takes place there and, interestingly, about 40 journalists gather at the fort every year to take a course “to initiate them to reporting in ‘hostile environments,’ covering topics from the urban guerilla to the risk of abduction in a war zone.” The picturesque fort is also a tourist attraction.
The size of the Fort Bear garrison was not given, being described only as “limited.” But what gave the attack a good chance of success was that one of the plotters, Djebril A., was an ex- French navy member, who had served nearly a year at the fort as a signal-man, from June 2013 to the spring of 2014, and knew “every little corner” of the installation. After multiple sick leaves, Djebril had been discharged from the navy last January because he had “trouble in adapting to the military profession.”
Using his intimate knowledge of the facility, Djebril confessed to authorities the attack was planned to take place on New Year’s Eve, “because the fort is less protected at this time.” Authorities also suspect the attack was to coincide with last January’s Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. After the attack, the three planned to flee to ISIS in Syria. The beheading of the fort’s commander was to be filmed and posted on the internet.
The French newspaper, Le Figaro, reports the three had been radicalised on the internet, “in particular by watching ISIS videos.” The internet is also where the cell members met. But it was the 17-year-old, Ishmael K., who, apparently, instigated the plot and was considered the “motor element” of the group. He had been in communication with an ISIS jihadist over the internet and planned to travel to Syria to join the group but was unable to do so. After this failure, the ISIS jihadist asked the French teenager to attack a target in France.
When the police raided Ishmael K.’s apartment, they found bomb-making literature, ISIS propaganda, a “very instructive” ISIS guide on the handling of weapons as well as videos of “murderous violence.” Also discovered were two cameras, one still in its package.
Attacks against military personnel are becoming more and more common on both sides of the Atlantic. Probably because Western militaries are seen as representing their countries’ power and involvement in combating jihad overseas. This year, besides the attack in Chattanooga, a jihadist murdered a Canadian soldier at Canada’s national war memorial in Ottawa, while another soldier was killed in Montreal. The most horrific attack against a Western soldier occurred two years ago in England. British soldier Lee Rigby was run down with a car and beheaded by two jihadists in broad daylight. And in France last February, a man with a knife attacked three soldiers guarding a Jewish center in Nice, the soldiers receiving light wounds.
Francois Hollande, France’s socialist president, however, called the Nice attack “a criminal act,” while others disagreed, calling it Islamic terrorism.
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“Everything will be done to get to the bottom of the motives and circumstances for this criminal act,” Hollande said. Hollande also assured the French of “the state’s determination to act to defend the security of our compatriots and to ensure the protection of our territory.”
Hollande has kept his word as far as France’s Jewish community is concerned. In what seems like France invading itself, his government has had 10,000 French troops guarding the country’s synagogues, Jewish schools and community centers since earlier January after a jihadist attack on a Jewish kosher supermarket left four dead.
The soldiers were to have been removed after a couple of months, but the danger level for further attacks against Jewish targets is still so high, it was decided to extend their deployment. Two of the deadliest attacks against Jews in Europe in recent history, the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels and on a Jewish school in Toulouse both originated in France.
Other measures a French government determined to protect its citizens and territory has taken was to set up “a green number” last year that people could call when they suspected someone had been radicalised. Le Figaro reports that about 2,500 calls are have been made so far. French jihadists who have travelled to join different, armed Islamist groups in Africa and the Middle East are also given stiff prison sentences upon their return. One who had been with ISIS in Syria received a seven-year sentence last November after his return to France.
And at the end of June, socialist French Prime Minister Manual Walls announced his government was ready to close mosques that incite violence and preach messages of hatred. The government was currently investigating two such mosques, Valls told the National Assembly.
“All solutions are explored and implemented to hinder the action of terrorists,” Valls stated. “If it is necessary to dissolve them, we will do it.”
This move was in response to the beheading of a French businessman in Isere by a Salafist (a Muslim who practices a very radical brand of Islam), last month. It is estimated that there are 89 “fundamentalist” mosques and prayer rooms in France, the number having disturbingly doubled in the last four years. France already expels radical imams. Four have been ejected this year and about forty have been deported since 2012. France’s interior minister recently announced his ministry now “will proceed to systematically expel all those who call for terrorism or for hatred in France.”
But these measures will probably not suffice to save France from the jihadist menace within its borders. Unlike the earlier waves of terrorism France experienced from the 1960s to 2000, a French terrorism analyst, Jean-Charles Brisard, said the jihadist one differs from the others in one very important aspect: it is “without precedent in its size.” And it is this amplitude that is challenging, perhaps even overwhelming, the French security services. The fact that armed combat troops have to protect Jewish facilities, since the police no longer can do so, speaks volumes.
And with France possessing the largest Muslim community in Europe at 6.5 million people, one that already supplies ISIS with the most recruits of any Western country, the French will almost certainly see more attacks against their soldiers as well as more beheadings and shootings of innocent people on their streets, accompanied by frenzied shouts of ‘allahu akbar’, for a long time to come yet.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/259553/france-targeted-again-stephen-brown
