The French government has introduced a controversial national database for monitoring the evolution of children born to jihadist parents and who have been returned to France from camps in Syria. The system, officially described as ensuring the “protection” of the minors and to prevent them “engaging in a process of delinquency or radicalisation”, contains very sensitive personal information about the children, and can be accessed by a wide range of administrations. It has come in for sharp criticism from rights campaigners, and faces a legal challenge before the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court, while Mediapart has learnt that the public prosecution services’ anti-terrorist branch has declined to participate in it. David Perrotin and Matthieu Suc report.
The women and children were brought back to France from Kurd-controlled camps in Syria where they had been interned after the military collapse of the so-called Isalamic State group in the region, and follows a similar mission in July.
Three young orphans of French jihadist parents who died after joining the ranks of the so-called Islamic State group in Syria have been held in orphanages in Damascus since November 2019. The aunt of two of them has been campaigning for their return to France, but the French authorities have told her they cannot help with the repatriation. “It’s a political question, but it is these children who suffer the consequences,” says their aunt. “They have already paid for the choices made by their parents.” Céline Martelet reports.
Three young orphans of French jihadist parents killed in Syria after joining the ranks of the so-called Islamic State group have been held in orphanages in Damascus since November 2019. The aunt of two of them has been campaigning for their return to France, but the French authorities have told her they cannot help. “It’s a political question, but it is these children who suffer the consequences,” says their aunt. “They have already paid for the choices made by their parents.” Céline Martelet reports.
The French government has announced that Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi died after a strike by France's Operation Barkhane force, which fights Islamist militants in the Sahel, mostly in Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso.
At the end of July, two French women and their children were returned to France by Turkey after spending years in Syria among the ranks of the so-called Islamic State group. After their arrival, they were placed under investigation and put into preventive detention. Under a cooperation agreement between Paris and Ankara, more are due to arrive this month and will face the same procedure. Céline Martelet reports on the path of the women former jihadists, and the fate of their children.
Over several years, the French intelligence services gained vital information about the activities of the so-called Islamic State group thanks to a man who infiltrated its terrorist network. A Muslim who became a spy by chance, he risked his life by befriending jihadists, and notably helped to foil two planned terror attacks. Matthieu Suc reveals the story of an unsung hero, codenamed Abominor.
David De Pas, coordinator of France's 12 anti-terrorism examining magistrates, said that it would be "better to know that these people are in the care of the judiciary" in France "than let them roam free".
Cherif Chekat, 29, the chief suspect in the shooting attack on the streets of Strasbourg, eastern France, which left five people dead and another 12 wounded, and who was shot dead by police shortly afterwards, had left a recent pledge of allegiance to the so-called Islamic State group on a computer memory stick, judicial officials have confirmed.
Following the military rout of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and Iraq, large numbers of French jihadists were forecast to return home. But in fact, those who have made the journey back represent relatively few of the estimated 700 who joined the ranks of IS in the Middle East. Since 2016, just 64 men and women jihadists have returned – and only seven so far this year. One principal reason is the logistical difficulties for those fleeing the zone and the high fees demanded by people smugglers. But the situation presents a potential security threat in that those who escape by their own means can become invisible to intelligence services. Matthieu Suc reports.
The knifeman who killed one man and wounded four other people in a rampage in a central Paris street on Saturday evening, and who was subsequently shot dead by police, has been named as Khamzat Azimov, born in Chechnya in 1997 and given French nationality in 2010.
Many thousands of people disappeared without trace during the occupation of large parts of Iraq by the Islamic State (IS) group between 2013 and 2017, most of them feared buried in hundreds of mass graves around the country which remain unexcavated. But among the lost, whose families continue to seek news of their fate, are also former captives of the jihadists, who are now detained in Iraqi prisons suspected of being members of IS. The increasingly desperate families of the vanished are demanding action to establish the truth about what happened to their relatives, and the mounting anger has become an issue in this weekend’s parliamentary elections in the country. Jérémy André reports from the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.
A confidential French justice ministry report, revealed by daily Le Monde, based on a study of court cases involving women returning to France from Syria where they had joined the ranks of the Islamic State group, has found that a majority held active roles within the organisation, and that only one third of those who joined the jihadists did so accompanying their families.
A woman police officer, together with her son and daughter, were among six people arrested for questioning over the murders in 2016 of a policeman and his partner, who worked in police adminstration, at their home west of Paris by a man who claimed he was acting in the name of the Islamic State group.
Thomas Barnouin, 36, linked to a French jihadist cell that included Toulouse terrorist Mohamed Merah, is reported to have been captured about ten days ago in Hassakeh, north-eastern Syria, with two other French members of the Islamic State group.
