French Terrorist Air Force Officer Planned Attack on Mosque

[Shah-Jehan]

When the terrorist isn’t Muslim all of a sudden there is real concern and mention of his “mental state.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...que-attack(the Guradian)
A French air force officer said to hold extreme rightwing views has been accused of planning to attack a mosque as worshippers celebrated the end of Ramadan. The sergeant, 23, who has not been named, was detained by police at an airbase at Mont Verdun near Lyon last Wednesday and remanded in custody.
After four days of questioning, he appeared in a Paris court at the weekend and was put under formal investigation for being in “possession of ammunition linked to a terrorist enterprise” against a place of worship.

The man was also accused of damaging a religious place in a terrorist act: http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/articl...0105_3224.html after he reportedly admitted throwing an incendiary device at a mosque at Libourne, near Bordeaux, last August. Nobody was injured in the incident and damage to the mosque was minimal.

A police source said the suspect admitted he was planning to fire shots at the Minguettes mosque at Vénissieux, a suburb of Lyon, last Thursday, at the end of the Muslim holy month.
Investigators told French journalists the man was “a lone figure and psychologically fragile… and going through a difficult period after romantic difficulties”. His family alerted the authorities after finding documents suggesting he had links with terrorist organisations and had views close to the extreme right.

Le Parisien reported that the sergeant had also made several attempts to contact Maxime Brunerie: http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-diver...13-3045777.php a far-right activist who tried to attack the then president Jacques Chirac: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxime_Brunerie during the traditional Bastille day celebrations in 2002.

Relatives of the airman said he had been affected by the suicide of the rightwing historian Dominique Venner, who shot himself in front of the altar in Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris on 21 May: http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...e-gay-marriage

In a statement, the French interior minister, Manuel Valls, praised the intelligence services for detaining the sergeant and preventing the attack. “The interior minister reiterates his resolute determination to combat all violence inspired by extremist ideology,” it said.
At the weekend Valls also condemned a series of attacks on a Muslim prayer hall in the Gironde, south-west France, after petrol was poured through the letterbox and set alight, and the building covered in swastikas. The minister described the incidents as intolerable.
On Monday, Kamel Kabtane, the rector of the Lyon mosque, which only opened in May, said the airman’s alleged plot showed that “a climate of Islamophobia reigns in France today and cannot hide its face”.
“Islam is more and more stigmatised,” he told journalists. Kabtane called for a gathering in front of the mosque later on Monday “to show our concern and our solidarity and to show that Muslims need to be protected”.

According to the Islamophobia Observatory, threats and attacks of an Islamophobic nature rose by 35% during the first six months of 2013, compared with the same period last year: http://observatoireislamophobie.wordpress.com/

A report published in July recorded 108 attacks – including the use of violence, fire and damage – compared with 80 reported in the first half of 2012. The number of threats and insults rose from 63 in 2012 to 84 this year.
“And these do not include threats that went unreported, which means the figures do not reflect the reality,” said Abdallah Zekri, the observatory president.
The French government is considering legislation to ban headscarves and other religious symbols in universities and higher education establishments. A similar ban already covers state schools.

Source: http://www.loonwatch.com/2013/08/fre...ack-on-mosque/

[Shah-Jehan]

Air force sergeant accused of planning mosque attack as Muslim leader denounces 'Islamophobic' France
A Muslim religious leader has denounced France’s “climate of Islamophobia” after an air force sergeant with alleged links to the extreme right was placed under investigation for attempting to carry out a terrorist attack against a mosque near Lyon.

The 23-year-old, who was arrested at a military base last week, has been placed under investigation on charges including possessing a weapon with terrorist intent.

Islamophobic attacks have risen by between 35 and 50 per cent in France this year according to data from Muslim associations. The country is home to five million Muslims.

The French interior ministry said the sergeant is believed to be “close to the radical far right” and had allegedly planned to open fire on the mosque at Vénissieux in the Bordeaux region on Thursday last week, when Muslims celebrated the end of Ramadan. A rally was held outside the Vénissieux mosque yesterday to encourage solidarity with the local Muslim community.

According to investigators, the soldier confessed to planning to attack the Vénissieux mosque and also admitted responsibility for firebombing a mosque in Libourne, southwestern France, in August last year. Some of the soldier’s relatives reportedly tipped off police about his most recent plans after finding him with extremist literature.

Kamel Kabtane, the rector of Lyon’s main mosque, expressed shock that the arrested man was a soldier “who is tasked with defending France”. Mr Kabtane said the arrest revealed “that a climate of Islamophobia reigns in France today, we cannot delude ourselves.” He added: “It’s been going on for some years, but now people are turning their words into acts.”

Investigators said that the serviceman had sought three times to contact Maxime Brunerie, a neo-Nazi who attempted to assassinate President Jacques Chirac in 2002 during the annual Bastille Day parade. The soldier was also a supporter of the radical historian Dominique Venner, who committed suicide in Notre-Dame cathedral in May. His suicide was ostensibly in protest against the legalisation of gay marriage in France, but in a blog post, he also warned that France and Europe were going to be brought under “Islamist control” and sharia law.

The rector praised the interior ministry for the arrest as a sign that France “treats all these matters equally.” French authorities have been accused in the past of failing to investigate anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks with the same zeal, an accusation which the Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, has described as false and “insulting.”

Mr Valls has been criticised by Muslim community leaders for playing down Islamophobia and for suggesting that some Islamic institutions in France were in the hands of radical Salafist factions which are stirring up sectarian friction.

Many anti-Muslim attacks have been linked to the debate on legislation which banned the wearing of the full-face niqab from April 2011, and which caused a spate of violent incidents. Riots erupted last month over a police identity check of a veiled woman in the Paris suburb of Trappes. In May, a 17-year-old identified only as Rabia told reporters she was attacked by “skinheads” who knocked her to the ground while calling her a “dirty Muslim”. In June, a pregnant Muslim woman lost her baby after an attack in which her veil was ripped from her by two men who taunted her with anti-Islamic slogans.

Tensions were further fuelled in March, when a French soldier was stabbed in a Paris suburb. Judges placed 22-year-old Alexandre Dhaussy, believed to be a recent convert to Islam, under formal investigation for “attempted murder linked to a terrorist enterprise”.

Last Saturday, the wall of a Muslim prayer room in Lesparre-Medoc, in the south-west, was daubed with swastikas.

Mr Valls has had several meetings in recent weeks with Muslim representatives, most recently in Ozoir-la-Ferrière, east of Paris, where he had a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner. The mosque in that city was sprayed with extremist slogans earlier this year.

5m The number of Muslims in France, out of a total population of 65 million

40 Mosques were attacked last year, twice the number in 2011

469 Islamophobic attacks were reported in France in 2012

54% The proportion of respondents to a Le Monde poll in February who said they believed France awarded too many rights to followers of Islam

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...e-8758129.html