The New York Times > Recruits: Officials Fear Iraq's Lure for Muslims in Europe
- France's antiterrorist police on Friday identified a young Frenchman killed fighting the United States in Iraq, the first confirmed case of what is believed to be a growing stream of Muslims heading from Europe to fight what they regard as a new holy war.
Redouane el-Hakim, 19, the son of Tunisian immigrants, died during an American bombardment of insurgents in Falluja on July 17, according to an intelligence official close to the case.
Intelligence officials fear that for a new generation of disaffected European Muslims, Iraq could become what Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya were for European Islamic militants in past decades: a galvanizing cause that sends idealistic young men abroad, trains them and puts them in touch with a more radical global network of terrorists. In the past, many young Europeans who fought in those wars came back to Europe to plot terrorist attacks at home.
Complete Article
Recruits: Officials Fear Iraq's Lure for Muslims in Europe
October 23, 2004
By CRAIG S. SMITH and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
PARIS, Oct. 22 - France's antiterrorist police on Friday
identified a young Frenchman killed fighting the United
States in Iraq, the first confirmed case of what is
believed to be a growing stream of Muslims heading from
Europe to fight what they regard as a new holy war.
Redouane el-Hakim, 19, the son of Tunisian immigrants, died
during an American bombardment of insurgents in Falluja on
July 17, according to an intelligence official close to the
case.
Intelligence officials fear that for a new generation of
disaffected European Muslims, Iraq could become what
Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya were for European Islamic
militants in past decades: a galvanizing cause that sends
idealistic young men abroad, trains them and puts them in
touch with a more radical global network of terrorists. In
the past, many young Europeans who fought in those wars
came back to Europe to plot terrorist attacks at home.
"We consider these people dangerous because those who go
will come back once their mission is accomplished," the
intelligence official said. "Then they can use the
knowledge gained there in France, Europe or the United
States. It's the same as those who went to Afghanistan or
Chechnya."
Hundreds of young militant Muslim men have left Europe to
fight in Iraq, according to senior counterterrorism
officials in four European countries. They have been
recruited through mosques, Muslim centers and militant Web
sites by several groups, including Ansar al-Islam, the
Kurdish terrorist group once based in northern Iraq.
French officials emphasize that there is not yet evidence
of a broad French network funneling fighters to Iraq, and
terrorism experts say the vast majority of foreign fighters
there come from other countries in the region. But past
experience with returning fighters from other Muslim holy
wars is causing anxiety in Europe.
Virtually all of the major terrorists arrested in Europe in
the past three years spent time in Bosnia, Afghanistan or
Chechnya. Two years ago, the French antiterrorism police
broke up a cell of Chechen-trained militants who they
believe were plotting a chemical attack in Paris. Those
arrests triggered an investigation that is still active
into what French counterterrorism officials call "the
Chechen network."
"Now, the new land of jihad is Iraq," the intelligence
official said. "There, they're trained, they fight and
acquire a technique and the indoctrination sufficient to
act on when they return."
A network of recruiters for Iraq first appeared in Britain,
France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Norway within months of
the United States-led invasion, officials said. Some
officials said the recruitment effort had now spread to
other countries in Europe, including Belgium and
Switzerland. The network provides forged documents,
financing, training and information about infiltration
routes into the country.
The movement to Iraq has increased in recent months,
officials say, but they decline to provide specifics.
One senior European intelligence official said there was
evidence that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born
militant believed to be operating in Falluja, has
established a sophisticated network that has helped recruit
nearly 1,000 young men from the Middle East and Europe.
"These young men know where the action is - they easily
cross the borders of Syria or Turkey, and they go directly
to Falluja," the official said.
The French official said many people en route to Iraq were
passing through Britain, once the major staging point for
Muslims going to Afghanistan, or through Saudi Arabia,
using the cover of a pilgrimage to Mecca to enter the Saudi
kingdom before making their way across the border.
In June, French news organizations reported that Syria had
stopped two French citizens from entering Iraq and had
expelled them to Turkey. A Tunisian who left from the
southern French port of Marseille was also reported to have
died last year in a suicide bombing in Iraq.
That man, Lofti Rihani, had links to a terrorist cell now
on trial in France for plotting to attack a market during
the Christmas holidays in the eastern French city of
Strasbourg in 1999, according to a report in the French
newspaper Le Figaro.
Last year, German news media quoted the president of
Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, August Hanning, as
saying Germany had evidence that some Islamic militants had
left Germany to fight in Iraq. He said fighters were also
being recruited in Britain and Bosnia.
Seven men arrested in northern Italy last year were accused
of providing false passports and money or other support to
an Islamic network smuggling fighters to Iraq.
More recently, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, known as Muhammad
the Egyptian, who is facing charges of orchestrating the
March 11 train bombings in Madrid, was recorded on wiretaps
boasting in Italy that he was about to send a team of
suicide bombers to Iraq.
Little is yet known about the man recently killed in
Falluja, Mr. Hakim, other than that he left France earlier
this year ostensibly to study in Syria. Intelligence
officials say that he flew to Damascus with his brother,
Boubaker, 21, who is wanted for questioning by the French
antiterrorist police because of his association with a
group suspected of terrorism-related activities in France.
Boubaker was detained in Syria and is still in custody
there, but Redouane Hakim continued on to Iraq.
Officials say they became aware of Mr. Hakim's death while
questioning his family about the activities of his brother,
Boubaker.
In June, the investigation in which Boubaker was identified
led to the arrest of a dozen people in nine locations north
of Paris on suspicion of terrorist-related activities. The
12, including an Islamic cleric, were associated with a
small mosque in the Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret.
The group, identified as Irqa by Le Figaro, had taken
control of the mosque and was using it to collect money and
recruit volunteers for holy war, the newspaper said. The
police say wiretaps picked up conversations that indicated
some associates of the group were traveling through Syria
to fight in Iraq.
According to Le Figaro, the group's leaders, a Tunisian and
an Algerian identified only as Adnen T. and Djamel D., were
well known to France's intelligence services. Adnen T. had
been questioned during the investigation of the 2002
bombing of a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba, in
which 19 people died. Djamel D. was close to a group that
provided logistical support for Djamel Beghal, arrested in
2001 for plotting to blow up the American Embassy in Paris.
Le Figaro reported that on June 11 police found a text
message from Iraq on the cellphone of a third member of the
group, identified as Toufik T. The message said: "The group
has arrived. I will contact you if I need help." Le Figaro
reported that the police believe that the message was sent
by Greg, a French convert to Islam who had previously
worked for a security company at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle
International Airport in Paris and was known to have gone
to Iraq.
A National Police official on Friday confirmed the accuracy
of Le Figaro's report.
French intelligence officials say they know of at least two
other Frenchmen in Falluja and believe that there are at
least 10 others in Iraq, mostly of Tunisian origin from
working-class suburbs of Paris.
Craig S. Smith reported from Paris for this article, and
Don Van Natta Jr. from London. Hilhne Fouquet contributed
reporting from Paris.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/international/europe/23france.html?ex=1099599547&ei=1&en=d52aa398172e326e
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