Paris under attack

[kscarbel2]

7 hours ago, HeavyGunner said:

Couple of things come to mind when I look at those pics. I'd bet the chance of a mass shooting is far less because the cowards that do the shootings look for the defenseless populated areas. Are those open carry protesters calling for anarchy and death to police officers or any other group?  There are far more alcohol related deaths than assault rifle deaths but the government isn't trying to ban alcohol. My personal belief is however we look at it good or bad citizens being able to own guns is what set America apart from other countries. It truly made/makes us free. My fear is once the left bans one gun, that won't be enough and they'll keep on trying to ban until we are an unarmed public that is completely dependent on whatever stipen they give us. 

Our nation has, in general, very competent and professionally trained state and local police. Protecting the public IS their job.

These assault rifle-carrying gentlemen do NOT enhance the safety of our fellow Americans. Rather, they only further complicate the situation.

Basically, there's a law that says they can "carry". So, they want to make a point, that they can......."carry".

Did their presence at the Dallas protest stir fear in the gunman and cause him to cancel his massacre plans?  NOT.

With all their assault rifles, did they take out the Dallas gunman?  NOT

Who did take out the gunman?  The dedicated, professional and highly trained Dallas police forced whose job it is to ensure our safety.

"the cowards that do the shootings look for the defenseless populated areas"

That doesn't fit the Dallas or Baton Rouge scenario. The gunmen didn't back down.....they weren't cowards in any regard.....they were fearless and bent on killing.

 

[david wild]

No they were sick and demented, do not confuse that with being brave.

[HeavyGunner]

It's funny things like stop and frisk which worked wonderfully and took many ILLEGAL firearms off of the street makes the public uncomfortable because the majority of people getting frisked and weapons taken off of them around problem areas in the city were minorities. Diblasio stopped that. Now we are back to square one with "leaders" of minority communities stamping their feet and asking the police, government and news anchors what are you going to do to stop the violence?!  I respect everyone on here and their views this is just food for thought.  where's the outrage against tying LEO's hands and perpetuating the violence in these areas by doing nothing. By no means am I condemning any one group, religion, race etc. this is just one example of the ridiculousness going on in our world. 

Edited July 21, 2016 by HeavyGunner
Spelling

[kscarbel2]

The Guardian  /  July 21, 2016

Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlelm the radical Islamist who drove a truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84 people and injuring hundreds more, had help planning the attack, says Paris prosecutor François Molins.

Evidence from mobile phones and computer records indicate Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was not a recently radicalised “lone wolf”, but had several accomplices and had planned his attack for up to a year.

Molins says after the attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in January 2015, in which 12 people died, Bouhlel sent a text message to one suspect that read: “I am not Charlie. I’m happy they have brought some of Allah’s soldiers to finish the job.”

French authorities have made “significant advances” in the investigation. Four men and a woman suspected of helping Bouhlel appeared before a judge in Paris accused of being involved in a terrorist operation.

The five suspects were in contact with Lahouaiej-Bouhlel shortly before he ploughed into crowds gathered for the traditional Bastille Day fireworks last week along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where the Tunisian man lived.

Police have uncovered thousands of calls and messages between Lahouaiej Bouhlel, and five accomplices, after going through his social media accounts, laptop and phone records.

"Put 2,000 tons of metal in the truck, f**k the brakes, and I'll be watching," says one message sent to Lahouaiej Bouhlel in April.

In the past year alone, Lahouaiej Bouhlel, had more than 1,270 conversations from his mobile with one of the men.

The accomplices continued to support Lahouaiej Bouhlel up until the day of the attack.

Seconds before Bouhlel drove the truck for almost 2km through groups of people, he sent two “odious messages” that appeared to have been pre-recorded on his mobile phone.

The prosecutor said it was increasingly evident that Bouhlel’s attack was premeditated and that he had logistical and planning support from the five others, with whom he had been in regular contact.

“He seems to have envisaged and developed his criminal plans several months before carrying them out,” Molins said.

The five people include a married couple from Albania, accused of supplying the automatic pistol that Bouhlel used to shoot at police, two French-Tunisian men and a Tunisian man. None were known to the French security or intelligence services and only one, a 41-year-old French-Tunisian, had a criminal record, for robbery, theft, assault and drug offences.

Photographs and searches on the attacker’s mobile phone included pictures of the Bastille Day fireworks in July 2015, and an article referring to the “magic potion called Captagon”, which Molins said was a drug “used by certain jihadis preparing terrorist attacks”.

At the home of one of the men, detectives reportedly found drugs, €2,600 in cash and 11 mobile phones.

One photograph discovered by investigators showed one of the suspects in the cab of the truck used to carry out the massacre, taken three hours before the attack.

France’s interior minister has acknowledged that there was no national police presence at the entrance to the pedestrian walkway in Nice during the attack. Backtracking on his previous claim that national police were present, Bernard Cazeneuve said local police, who are more lightly armed, were guarding the entrance through which Bouhlel drove his truck.

Meanwhile, the 51-year-old motorcyclist who tried to stop the attacker spoke about his experience to Nice-Matin. Franck, an airport worker whose surname was not given, said: “I wanted to stop him at any price … my aim was to get to the [driver’s] cabin. When I drew level with him, I asked myself, what are you going to do with your poor scooter, so I threw it against the lorry and continued to run after him.

“Finally I grabbed on to the cabin. I was on the steps at the level of the open window facing him. I hit and hit him and hit him again. With all my strength, with my left hand in the face. He said nothing. He didn’t even flinch. He had his gun in his hand but the pistol was not working. I had the impression he was trying to fiddle with it, I don’t know. He pointed it at me and pulled on the trigger but it didn’t work.

“I was ready to die. I was conscious and ready to die to stop him and I kept hitting him. I tried to drag him out through the window because I couldn’t open the bloody door. I kept hitting him. Then he finally hit me on the head with the butt.”

[kscarbel2]

A lone radical Islamist gunmen opened fire in Munich on Friday evening, killing 9 people and wounding 35. (Police initially suspected that three gunman were involved)

Police investigation has revealed that the radical Islamist began planning his attack last summer.

The Bavarian capital is now under a state of emergency as police hunt for the gunmen. Special forces are deployed throughout the city.

"We are telling the people of Munich there are shooters on the run who are dangerous," police said. "We are urging people to stay indoors."

The gunman, a German of Iranian descent identified as David Sonboly, shot himself in the head. His body was found about 1 km (0.6 miles) from the scene.

The shooting broke out at a McDonald's across from the Olympia shopping mall about 5:50 p.m. (11:50 a.m. ET). Gunfire also broke out inside the mall, which is adjacent to the site of the 1972 Olympics.

Police say gunfire was reported in several locations, and that witnesses saw three people with firearms.

A profanity-filled verbal exchange between a man who matches the description of the Munich shooter and a witness was posted on social media Friday. The exchange, recorded on two different camera phones, captured an intense conversation that ends in gunfire. The man who appears to be a shooter said insulting things about Turks, did not espouse jihadist ideology and spoke with a German accent.

A gunman shouting 'Allahu Akbar' opened fire on dining children in McDonald's before rampaging through the Olympia shopping mall across the street. Witnesses say that the gunman screamed 'I'm German' and 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) before shooting at the children.

He came out of the McDonald’s bathroom with a gun and began shooting.

 “I come out of the toilet and I hear like an alarm, boom, boom, boom. He's killing the children. The children were sitting to eat. They can't run,” a woman said.

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[david wild]

Islam peace loving my ass  

[BillyT]

Everyone of you has a good point!! Tragic how truck drivers can be totally bipartisan,but p.o.s. career politicians cannot bend an inch! I have been apolitical my entire life! I've muted the tv every time anything concerning politics comes on! All I know is each election the choices are poorer than the last! none of the candidates are anyone I would have considered in my worst nightmare! A child could see thru their lives and half truths! ok I'm thru sorry. that was lies not lives,freaking spellchek.

[grayhair]

Meanwhile back in Dallas, a local TV station reported that authorities wanted to perform a toxicology test on the shooter.  They went on to say that the toxicology tests may not be possible because there were not enough remains to work with.  Apparently the police robot with bomb that took him out pretty much disintegrated the guy.  Didn't hear this reported on the national news.  

[Gmerrill0516]

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, our AG has come out to say that weapons that look like assault weapons are now illegal in the Commonwealth.  That's the AG, not the legislature.  Does anyone see a problem with that?

[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  July 24, 2016

A 21-year-old Syrian asylum-seeker killed a pregnant 45-year-old Polish woman with a machete Sunday in the southwest German city of Reutlingen.

The Syrian then attacked the occupants of a Citroen car in which a 51-year-old woman suffered cuts to her arms and a 41-year-old man went into shock. 

The attacker also slashed the face of a 23-year-old.

A man driving a BMW ran over the attacker, knocking him to the ground.

German media have been reporting that the motive for the attack in the city south of Stuttgart was unclear but the attacker and the 45-year-old Polish victim both worked at the same snack bar. 

Police are describing the incident as a “crime of passion” rather than a "terrorist attack".

The attack occurred around 4:30 pm near the city’s main bus station at Listplatz Square.

Reutlingen, population 100,000, is near Stuttgart.

The attacker was "known to police".

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[kscarbel2]

BBC  /  July 24, 2016

A radical Islamist has detonated a bomb outside a bar in the southern German city of Ansbach, near Nuremberg around 10:00pm local time on Sunday.

One person was been killed, and 12 others are wounded, 3 in critical condition.

Police say the attacker, a 27-year-old rejected asylum seeker from Syria, detonated an explosive device in his backpack.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said the suspected attacker had entered Germany two years ago and had his asylum claim rejected a year ago.

The attacker had been given leave to stay temporarily given the situation in his home country and provided with an apartment in Ansbach.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BBC  /  July 25, 2016

The Syrian radical Islamist who blew himself up in Ansbach, Germany, on Sunday made a video pledging allegiance to the leader ISIS, Bavarian authorities say.

The man threatened a "revenge attack" on Germans in the video.

Germany's federal prosecutor's office has taken on the case due to "the suspicion of membership of a foreign terrorist organization".

[kscarbel2]

The Guardian  /  July 24, 2016

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson rebuked by British Liberal Democrat Tom Drake for blaming Munich shooting on terrorists.

The lone radical Islamist gunmen opened fire in Munich on Friday evening, murdering 9 people and wounding 35.

Drake urged the Foreign Secretary to avoid passing “politically sensitive judgments” on world events until he was in full possession of the facts after he allegedly prematurely blamed Islamist terrorists for the killings in Munich on Friday.

Johnson made his remarks before the identity of the killer – an 18-year-old German citizen of Iranian descent who was obsessed with mass slaughter – had been known.

(So in fact, the Foreign Secretary was spot on with his assessment)

Speaking about the attack on Friday while in New York, Johnson told the press that that the “global sickness” of terrorism needed to be tackled at its source in the Middle East.

“If, as seems very likely, this is another terrorist incident, then I think it proves once again that we have a global phenomenon and a global sickness that we have to tackle both at the source – in the areas where the cancer is being incubated in the Middle East – and also of course around the world.”

He added: “We have to ask ourselves, what is going on? How is the switch being thrown in the minds of these people?”

[david wild]

Not to worry O crap for brains has declared the world safer now than any other time ????? is this moron on the same planet as the rest of us ???? 

[kscarbel2]

Australia plans to indefinitely hold 'terror' convicts

Associated Press  /  July 25, 2016

Australia will indefinitely detain people convicted of "terrorism-related" charges if it feels they pose an ongoing danger to society upon their release, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said.

Turnbull said the proposed measure was prompted by an increase in the frequency and severity of attacks around the world.

"In the wake of Orlando, Nice, and other terrorist incidents, as well as our own experience ... we cannot afford for a moment to be complacent," Turnbull said. 

"This legislation will enable additional periods of imprisonment for terrorist offenders who have served their sentences but are still judged to present an unacceptable risk to the community."

The proposal is similar to arrangements already in place for sex offenders and extremely violent individuals in some states.

Attorney-General George Brandis said the extension of detention would be a court supervised process with regular reviews and reassessments.

"It will of course only apply to individuals who, as they approach the end of a sentence of imprisonment, continue to pose an unacceptably high risk to the community because of their failure to be rehabilitated as a result of a penal sentence," he said.

Under the proposed laws, the age at which children could be held would be lowered from 16 to 14.

Turnbull said the steps were necessary but proportionate.

"They balance the need to keep the community safe with our commitment to privacy and the rights of the individual," Turnbull said, stressing that ultimately it was important the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group was defeated. 

A total 44 people have been charged with "terrorism" offences in Australia since 2014, including some involved in the planning of mass attacks on the public, Turnbull said.

[kscarbel2]

CNN / July 26, 2016

French President Francois Hollande says radical Islamist ISIS terrorists are behind a deadly hostage-taking at a Catholic church in Normandy, in which a priest was killed and another person seriously wounded.

Two men, armed with knives, entered the church at Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, at 9.43am local time during morning prayers and took five hostages. Father Jacques Hamel, 84, who was held captive along with two nuns and two parishioners, had his chest stabbed and throat slit, investigative sources said, while the other victim was described as being seriously injured and between “life and death”.

Adel Kermiche and his accomplice, also known to French police, forced 84-year-old Father Jacques Hamel to kneel at the altar before they slit his throat on camera and performed a 'sermon in Arabic'.

Both were shot dead by police marksmen as they emerged from the building shouting 'Allahu Akbar'.

Speaking to journalists, Hollande said the attack was a "cowardly assassination" carried out by "by two terrorists in the name of Daesh" -- another name for ISIS.

An 84-year-old Catholic priest, the Rev. Jacques Hamel, was killed when two men stormed the church in the northern region of Normandy.

In addition, two nuns and two churchgoers were taken hostage.

One of the hostages was seriously wounded, and is "between life and death," said French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.

Brandet said the church was surrounded by the BRI, France’s anti-gang brigade who shot the attackers as they came out. Hollande met members of the brigade, who wore black balaclavas to mask their identities, and praised them for the speed of their intervention, which he said “prevented a much higher toll and saved the lives of hostages”.

Authorities have identified the radical Islamists as Abdel-Malik Nabil Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, both age 19.

Kermiche lived in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray and had tried to go to fight in Syria last year, but had been stopped in Turkey by authorities there.

He was then sent back to France and sent to prison in May 2015. Before he was released, placed under police surveillance and forced to wear an electronic monitoring tag.

French authorities have struggled to monitor the thousands of domestic Islamic radicals on their radar, and, in response to the heightened terror threat, Hollande has vowed to double the number of officials charged with the task.

More than 10,000 people are on their "fiche S" list, used to flag radicalized individuals considered a threat to national security.

.

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[david wild]

Stop worrying, sh*t for brains has declared the world a safer place since he took over even though the reports of crime are up across the board, the democrats have it all under control, part of the master plan, they even screw their own. one hell of a party there. deceit, corruption and lies, something that every voter should be proud of. How does a democrat look in a mirror and think to themselves I'm so smart I vote for people that lie and cheat but they will never do it to me ???  That is a sign of a mental sickness ???????  Thank God that b*tch from FL. is gone, that was one hell of a puke. just another crooked, corrupt and lying democrat.  Bernie needs to align himself with Trump just to punish the liars and corruptors.(new word for corrupt democrat)   

[kscarbel2]

Dozens of French towns to arm local police as mayor says non-lethal weapons not enough

RT  /  August 2, 2016

The terrorist attack in Nice which killed 84 people when a truck plowed through crowds celebrating Bastille Day has prompted several French mayors to arm local police. Non-lethal weapons are incapable of stopping a “crazed attacker,” one mayor said.

"Along the Promenade des Anglais [in Nice] the municipal police and the national police had the same mission – to stop a crazed vehicle or murderer,” said Francois Bayrou, the mayor of Pau.

“Our weapons against incivility, such as the Taser or the flash-ball, are obviously worthless in stopping a vehicle," he added.

The Pau mayor has decided to give guns to some 35 municipal police officers.

Bayrou noted that 75 percent of those who will be given the arms “were either in the police or in the national police or in the army, and are therefore trained in handling the weapons.”

All the officers are required to undergo 57 hours of training to obtain authorization.

The mayors of the small French towns of Belfort and Thonon-les-Bains also earlier decided to allow local law enforcers to carry guns – joining municipal police officers in the towns of Romilly-sur-Seine, Saint-Quentin and Puy-en-Velay, who were previously authorized to carry arms.

The law allows for the municipal police in France to carry arms, but the decision has to be taken individually by each mayor.

The mayors of Nantes and Besancon have decided against arming local police.

As things stand, of the approximately 20,000 municipal French police, "fewer than half are armed," Cedric Michel, the national president of the municipal police defence union (SDPM), told Le Figaro last month.

In June, France relaxed gun rules for its police force, allowing officers to carry firearms while off-duty. The policy change came just days after a police couple was murdered by a jihadist in a Paris suburb.

France is currently under a state of emergency, first declared by President Francois Hollande hours after the Paris attacks in November last year. It was renewed for the fourth time following the Nice attack last month.

[kscarbel2]

DC police officer tried to support ISIS

Associated Press  /  August 3, 2016

A Washington, D.C.-area transit police officer has been charged in an FBI sting with attempting to support ISIS.

Nicholas Young, 36, of Fairfax, Virginia, was arrested at the Metropolitan Police Headquarters on Wednesday morning.

Young, a 12-year veteran of the transit police force, was charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.  

The FBI says he is the first law enforcement officer in the United States to be charged with a terror-related crime.  

Young bought nearly $250 in gift cards he intended for the Islamic State's fighters to use to purchase mobile apps that would facilitate communication. 

Young believed the informant he was messaging was an acquaintance who was working with the militant group, but he actually gave the gift cards to an undercover FBI source.

Young has been under surveillance since 2010.

He traveled to Libya twice in 2011, where he said he joined rebel forces seeking to oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Young traveled with body armor, a kevlar helmet, and several other military-style items. 

Officials say Young did not pose any threat to the Metro system in the US capital. 

He has been with the Metro Transit Police Department since 2003.

Young had converted to Islam.

Police first interviewed Young in connection with his acquaintance, Zachary Chesser in 2010. 

A month later, Chesser pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists.

Over the next several years, Young had a number of interactions with undercover officers and a cooperating witness regarding his knowledge or interest of terrorist-related activity.

In one conversation with an undercover officer in March 2011, Young said that he hated the FBI and was skilled enough to attack the agency.

Young said that although firearms are not permitted in Alexandria's federal courthouse, he went on to desscribea way to bring multiple guns inside undetected in order to distribute to others.

Young met an FBI source on 20 separate occasions in 2014.

The source posed as a U.S. military reservist of Middle Eastern descent who was becoming more religious and eager to leave the U.S. military as a result of having had to fight against Muslims during his deployment to Iraq.

Young advised the source on how to evade detection by law enforcement by using specific travel methods and advised the man to watch out for informants and not discuss his plans with others.

In the fall of 2014, the source led Young to believe that he had successfully left the United States and had joined ISIS - but in reality, he had no further contact with the source.

All further communications between Young and the source's email account were actually between Young and FBI undercover personnel posing as him. 

In January last year, Young 'proudly' referenced the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks in an email.

'Not sure if you got the news there yet,' he said in a message days after the massacre in Paris.

'A couple brothers... were named in an assault on a french newspaper... Hopefully now people understand there are some lines you don't cross.' 

In June last year, Young emailed him asking for advice from ISIS commanders on how to send his money overseas. 

'Unfortunately I have enough flags on my name that I can't even buy a plane ticket without little alerts ending up in someone's hands, so I imagine banking transactions are automatically monitored and will flag depending on what is going on,' Young wrote.

In an interview with the police who responded to a report of domestic violence on June 1, Young revealed he had dressed up as 'Jihadi John' - the ISIS fighter who beheaded numerous people in propaganda videos - for Halloween in 2014.

As part of his costume, Young said that he had stuffed an orange jumpsuit with paper to portray a headless hostage, which he carried with him throughout the party.

In that interview, Young also revealed that he had dressed up as a Nazi before and collects Nazi memorabilia. He also showed officers a tattoo of a German eagle on his neck.

In December last year, the FBI interviewed Young, ostensibly in connection to an investigation into the whereabouts of the source. 

Young told agents that he had left the United States to go on a vacation tour in Turkey around one year ago, but said that he knew of no one who helped the man cross the Turkish border into Syria.

On July 18, Young sent a message intended for the source regarding purchasing of gift cards for mobile messaging accounts which the terror group uses for recruitment purposes.  

On July 28, Young sent 22 16-digit gift card codes to the undercover FBI agents with a message that said: 'Respond to verify receipt... may not answer depending on when as this device will be destroyed after all are sent to prevent the data being possibly seen on this end in the case of something unfortunate.' 

Young sent the gift card codes after the informant told him that the group needed help setting up mobile messaging accounts, according to the affidavit, and then promised to cover his tracks: 'Gonna eat the SIM card. Have a good day.' 

The codes were ultimately redeemed by the FBI for $245.

Several meetings Young had with an undercover officer in 2011 included another of Young's acquaintances, Amine El Khalifi, who later pleaded guilty to charges relating to attempting a suicide bombing at the U.S. Capitol Building in 2012. 

The investigation into Young was initiated by the transit police [not the FBI ?], Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority CEO Paul Wiedefeld said.

Young is scheduled to make his first appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, at 2pm on Wednesday.

He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if convicted. 

.

 

[kscarbel2]

Zachary Chesser of Bristow, Virginia was an acquaintance of Nicholas Young. In 2010, then age 20, Chesser pleaded guilty to providing material support to the group al-Shabab. The muslim convert also told the creators of the television show “South Park” that they risked death for mocking the Prophet Muhammad in an episode.

Court papers stated that Chesser tried to join the join the al-Shabab terror group in Somalia in early 2010 and that he posted online propaganda on their behalf. Chesser also took his infant son with him to the airport to make his travel appear more innocuous.

Prosecutors also charged him with communicating threats and soliciting crimes of violence.

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[kscarbel2]

Terrorist attack in London, 1 dead, 5 wounded

Associated Press  /  August 3, 2016

A 64-year-old American, Darlene Horton, has been killed, and five people wounded (2 other women and 3 men - Australian, Israeli and British), in a mass stabbing in the centre of London.

Police have arrested a 19-year-old man on suspicion of murder. The suspect is a Norwegian national of Somali origin who came to the UK in 2002.

The Metropolitan Police say the incident occurred at Russell Square near the British Museum at around 10.30pm on Wednesday night.

“Police were called at 22:33 hours on Wednesday 3 August to reports of a man seen in possession of a knife injuring people at Russell Square, WC1,” the Metropolitan Police stated.

“Officers attended the scene along with the London Ambulance Service. Up to six people were found injured at the location.”

“A female (no further details) was treated at the scene but was pronounced dead a short time later. We await an update on the condition of the other persons injured and details of any other injuries.”

“A man was arrested at 22:39 hours and a Taser was discharged by one of the arresting officers. Additional police units have been deployed to the area to provide reassurance.”

Fears that the knifeman operated with an accomplice were raised in the early hours as the Met refused to rule out further suspects.

One witness saw three men fleeing nearby Queen Square shortly after the incident.

“One man fled on a motorcycle heading down a pedestrian area,” he said. “He obviously looked in a hurry.” 

Scotland Yard had earlier on Wednesday announced an extra 600 officers armed officers were being deployed on patrol in London after the recent terror attacks in France and Germany.

The incident occurred in the same area where one of the July 7 bombs detonated in 2005. A total of 26 people were murdered when radical Islamist Germaine Lindsay, 19, detonated a suicide bomb on a Piccadilly line subway as it moved between King's Cross station and Russell Square. 

Retired American teacher Darlene Horton was in London with her husband, Florida State University psychology professor Richard Wagner, where he taught during the summer session when the attack occurred. The couple had planned to return to Florida on Thursday.

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[kscarbel2]

Radical Islamists attack city bus in Paris 

Associated Press  /  August 3, 2016

Shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great), radical Islamists set a city municipal transit bus on fire with Molotov cocktails after blocking its way with makeshift barricade in Paris. The perpetrators were reportedly

The attack occurred in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis last week.

A group of young men rolled trash containers into the street in front of an approaching bus to “set up a trap to force the bus to stop,” police said.

After forcing the articulated bus to a halt, the attackers forced the driver and passengers out.

The men then start kicking the bus and smashing its windows, before finally throwing Molotov cocktails at the vehicle, causing an explosion and a massive fire.

“This act of premeditated vandalism, the consequences of which have been tragic, follows an attempted homicide on a worker by a Molotov cocktail on July 22 and buildings being looted,” Saint-Denis mayor Didier Paillard told Le Parisien.

The Saint-Denis district, known for a high immigrant population, has been a scene of similar unrest in the previous years.

In 2005, massive riots swept through the area, with thousands of cars burned to ashes.

The following year, unease over the arrest of a teenager for attacking a bus driver led to more street protests and violence, eventually involving riot police.

Several buses also came under attack in Saint-Denis in 2010, with one set ablaze with a Molotov cocktail while others torched.

The November 2015 wave of terrorist attacks in Paris also affected Saint-Denis. One of the suspected masterminds of the atrocities was killed in a standoff with police and army after he was located by law enforcement in the district.

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[david wild]

Funny I have not one word of outrage from our nit wit leader or Clinton and mostly not a word from the Muslim community here in this country, condemn or condone only to choices you have. still don't hear you Muslim and Muslim lovers condemning this action ?????   

[BillyT]

 Everyone of you has a good point!! Tragic how truck drivers can be totally bipartisan,but p.o.s. career politicians cannot bend an inch! I have been apolitical my entire life! I've muted the tv every time anything concerning politics comes on! All I know is each election the choices are poorer than the last! none of the candidates are anyone I would have considered in my worst nightmare! A child could see thru their lives and half truths! ok I'm thru sorry. that was lies not lives,freaking spellchek.

[kscarbel2]

Man in Charlotte recruiting for ISIS, planning training compound

The Charlotte Observer  /  August 4, 2016

A man who had lived in Charlotte about a month was arrested Thursday, accused of trying to recruit domestic terrorists for ISIS and claiming to be planning a secret training camp on U.S. soil.

Erick Jamal Hendricks, 35, used social media networks to contact and recruit Americans for the cause of ISIS, and appeared to have ties to a 2015 attack at a Texas event mocking pictures of the prophet Muhammad.

Hendricks was obsessed with security while connecting on social media sites, unbeknownst that he’d been communicating with an FBI undercover operative and others who’d agreed to cooperate with investigators.

In a March 2015 meeting in Baltimore with others he believed to be part of his ISIS ring, Hendricks said he had land in Arkansas where he could “get off the grid” and prepare for bloody battle with law enforcement.

Three months later, Hendricks told the FBI operative that he wanted to construct a training center “hidden in plain sight … Farm, house, garden, tunnels.”

In communications with others, Hendricks claimed to have 10 operatives in the United States and hoped to raid military depots for weapons.

Until being charged Thursday with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, a crime that carries a sentence up to 15 years, Hendricks only had minor traffic infractions on his record.

Hendricks grew up in Woodson, Arkansas, near Little Rock, and until recently had been living in Virginia.

Began in Ohio

Hendricks’ case appears to have dovetailed with an arrest in Ohio in June 2015. Federal authorities said that an unidentified man in the Cleveland area tried to buy an AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition from an undercover officer.

He later pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization and two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He had an extensive criminal record including four felony convictions for drug trafficking.

He entered into a plea agreement with the federal government that allowed for a reduced sentence if he cooperated with investigators.

He told the FBI that he had been contacted by Hendricks through social media in the spring of 2015 as a possible ISIS recruit after pledging allegiance to ISIS and indicating on social media he would be interested in conducting attacks in the United States.

Hendricks told the man he “needed people” and wanted to meet with him.

Hendricks also told the man that there were “brothers” in Texas and Mexico; that he was attempting to “get brothers to meet face to face;” and that he wanted “to get brothers to train together.”

Hendricks tested the man’s religious knowledge and commitment to Islam, asking whether he’d be willing to commit “jihad,” to die as a “martyr” and his desire to enter paradise.

The Ohio man took this to mean that Hendricks was seeking recruits for a terrorist attack in the U.S. and to find out if the man was a suitable candidate.

Hendricks also criticized the Ohio man for his involvement in selling marijuana, saying it was an affront to Muslim faith.

On his Facebook page, Hendricks wrote in 2014: “I have not smoked one blunt or dranked one drop of liquar; or had one single, solitary act of sex outside of marriage; or defiled my body with the prohibited meat (meat) in almost 15 years.”

FBI informant

Hendricks had also been talking through social media to someone working undercover for the FBI.

On April 16, 2015, Hendricks told the FBI operative to download the document “GPS for the Ghuraba in the U.S.”

Among other instructions, the document encouraged followers to die as martyrs rather than be arrested and jailed. “Boobie trap your homes,” “lay in wait for them” and to “never leave your home without your AK-47 or M16,” the document advised.

Hendricks kept in contact with the FBI operative and at least two other confidential informants on the federal payroll, authorities say. He changed online identities regularly and instructed them on security protocols so they wouldn’t be detected by federal investigators.

At one point, Hendricks told the FBI operative that he worked full-time as a recruiter and “It’s hard to sift through brothers” and “Allah chooses only the few.”

Attack on contest

On April 23, 2015, Hendricks contacted a man named Elton Simpson through social media. Along with Nadir Hamid Soofi, Simpson launched the ISIS-inspired attack on the “First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” in Garland, Texas on May 3, 2015.

It followed the January 2015 attack on the French humor magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had run mocking cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Creating depictions of Muhammad is forbidden in Islamic beliefs.

Simpson and Soofi wounded a security guard and were killed by Garland police guarding the event.

Hendricks had been in touch with Simpson through social media and urged the FBI’s undercover operative to attend the contest on the day of the attack. Hendricks asked the operative on the day of the attack through social media questions about security:

“How many police/agents?”, “Do you see feds there?’ “Do you see snipers?” Hendricks asked through messages.

Hendricks’ next court appearance, a detention hearing, is scheduled for Tuesday in Charlotte before U.S. Magistrate David Cayer.

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How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built a Global Network of Killers

The New York Times  /  August 3, 2016

A jailhouse interview with a German man who joined the Islamic State reveals the workings of a unit whose lieutenants are empowered to plan attacks around the world.

Believing he was answering a holy call, Harry Sarfo left his home in the working-class city of Bremen last year and drove for four straight days to reach the territory controlled by the Islamic State in Syria.

He barely had time to settle in before members of the Islamic State’s secret service, wearing masks over their faces, came to inform him and his German friend that they no longer wanted Europeans to come to Syria. Where they were really needed was back home, to help carry out the group’s plan of waging terrorism across the globe.

“He was speaking openly about the situation, saying that they have loads of people living in European countries and waiting for commands to attack the European people,” Mr. Sarfo recounted on Monday, in an interview with The New York Times conducted in English inside the maximum-security prison near Bremen. “And that was before the Brussels attacks, before the Paris attacks.”

The masked man explained that, although the group was well set up in some European countries, it needed more attackers in Germany and Britain, in particular. “They said, ‘Would you mind to go back to Germany, because that’s what we need at the moment,’” Mr. Sarfo recalled. “And they always said they wanted to have something that is occurring in the same time: They want to have loads of attacks at the same time in England and Germany and France.”

The operatives belonged to an intelligence unit of the Islamic State known in Arabic as the Emni, which has become a combination of an internal police force and an external operations branch, dedicated to exporting terror abroad, according to thousands of pages of French, Belgian, German and Austrian intelligence and interrogation documents obtained by The Times.

The Islamic State’s attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 brought global attention to the group’s external terrorism network, which began sending fighters abroad two years ago.

Now, Mr. Sarfo’s account, along with those of other captured recruits, has further pulled back the curtain on the group’s machinery for projecting violence beyond its borders.

What they describe is a multi-level secret service under the overall command of the Islamic State’s most senior Syrian operative, spokesman and propaganda chief, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. Below him is a tier of lieutenants empowered to plan attacks in different regions of the world, including a “secret service for European affairs,” a “secret service for Asian affairs” and a “secret service for Arab affairs.”

Reinforcing the idea that the Emni is a core part of the Islamic State’s operations, the interviews and documents indicate that the unit has carte blanche to recruit and reroute operatives from all parts of the organization — from new arrivals to seasoned battlefield fighters, and from the group’s special forces and its elite commando units. Taken together, the interrogation records show that operatives are selected by nationality and grouped by language into small, discrete units whose members sometimes only meet one another on the eve of their departure abroad.

And through the coordinating role played by Mr. Adnani, terror planning has gone hand-in-hand with the group’s extensive propaganda operations — including monthly meetings in which Mr. Adnani chose which grisly videos to promote based on battlefield events.

Based on the accounts of operatives arrested so far, the Emni has become the crucial cog in the group’s terrorism machinery, and its trainees led the Paris attacks and built the suitcase bombs used in a Brussels airport terminal and subway station. Investigation records show that its foot soldiers have also been sent to Austria, Germany, Spain, Lebanon, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia.

With European officials stretched by a string of assaults by seemingly unconnected attackers who pledged allegiance to ISIS, Mr. Sarfo suggested that there may be more of a link than the authorities yet know. He was told that undercover operatives in Europe used new converts as go-betweens, or “clean men,” who help link up people interested in carrying out attacks with operatives who can pass on instructions on everything from how to make a suicide vest to how to credit their violence to the Islamic State.

The group has sent “hundreds of operatives” back to the European Union, with “hundreds more in Turkey alone,” according to a senior United States intelligence official and a senior American defense official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Mr. Sarfo agrees with that assessment. “Many of them have returned,” he said. “Hundreds, definitely.”

Vetting Recruits

The first port of call for new arrivals to the Islamic State is a network of dormitories in Syria, just across the border from Turkey. There, recruits are interviewed and inventoried.

Mr. Sarfo was fingerprinted, and a doctor came to draw a blood sample and perform a physical examination. A man with a laptop conducted an intake interview. “He was asking normal questions like: ‘What’s your name? What’s your second name? Who’s your mom? Where’s your mom originally from? What did you study? What degree do you have? What’s your ambition? What do you want to become?’” Mr. Sarfo said.

His background was also of interest. He was a regular at a radical mosque in Bremen that had already sent about 20 members to Syria, at least four of whom were killed in battle, according to Daniel Heinke, the German Interior Ministry’s counterterrorism coordinator for the area. And he had served a one-year prison sentence for breaking into a supermarket safe and stealing 23,000 euros. Even though the punishment for theft in areas under Islamic State control is amputation, a criminal past can be a valued asset, Mr. Sarfo said, “especially if they know you have ties to organized crime and they know you can get fake IDs, or they know you have contact men in Europe who can smuggle you into the European Union.”

The bureaucratic nature of the intake procedure was recently confirmed by American officials after USB drives were recovered in the recently liberated Syrian city of Manbij, one of the hubs for processing foreign fighters.

Mr. Sarfo checked all the necessary boxes, and on the third day after his arrival, the members of the Emni came to ask for him. He wanted to fight in Syria and Iraq, but the masked operatives explained that they had a vexing problem.

 “They told me that there aren’t many people in Germany who are willing to do the job,” Mr. Sarfo said soon after his arrest last year, according to the transcript of his interrogation by German officials, which runs more than 500 pages. “They said they had some in the beginning. But one after another, you could say, they chickened out, because they got scared — cold feet. Same in England.”

By contrast, the group had more than enough volunteers for France. “My friend asked them about France,” Mr. Sarfo said. “And they started laughing. But really serious laughing, with tears in their eyes. They said, ‘Don’t worry about France.’ ‘Mafi mushkilah’ — in Arabic, it means ‘no problem.’” That conversation took place in April 2015, seven months before the coordinated killings in Paris in November, the worst terrorist attack in Europe in over a decade.

While some details of Mr. Sarfo’s account cannot be verified, his statements track with what other recruits related in their interrogations. And both prison officials and the German intelligence agents who debriefed Mr. Sarfo after his arrest said they found him credible.

Since the rise of the Islamic State over two years ago, intelligence agencies have been collecting nuggets on the Emni. Originally, the unit was tasked with policing the Islamic State’s members, including conducting interrogations and ferreting out spies, according to interrogation records and analysts. But French members arrested in 2014 and 2015 explained that the Emni had taken on a new portfolio: projecting terror abroad.

“It’s the Emni that ensures the internal security inside Dawla” — the Arabic word for state — “and oversees external security by sending abroad people they recruited, or else sending individuals to carry out violent acts, like what happened in Tunisia inside the museum in Tunis, or else the aborted plot in Belgium,” said Nicolas Moreau, 32, a French citizen who was arrested last year after leaving the Islamic State in Syria, according to his statement to France’s domestic intelligence agency.

Mr. Moreau explained that he had run a restaurant in Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of the group’s territory, where he had served meals to key members of the Emni — including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the on-the-ground commander of the Paris attacks, who was killed in a standoff with the police days later.

Other interrogations, as well as Mr. Sarfo’s account, have led investigators to conclude that the Emni also trained and dispatched the gunman who opened fire on a beach in Sousse, Tunisia, in June, and the man who prepared the Brussels airport bombs.

Records from French, Austrian and Belgian intelligence agencies show that at least 28 operatives recruited by the Emni succeeded in deploying to countries outside of the Islamic State’s core territory, mounting both successful attacks and plots that were foiled. Officials say that dozens of other operatives have slipped through and formed sleeper cells.

In his own interactions with the Emni, Mr. Sarfo realized that they were preparing a global portfolio of terrorists and looking to fill holes in their international network, he said.

He described what he had been told about the group’s work to build an infrastructure in Bangladesh. There, a siege by a team of Islamic State gunmen left at least 20 hostages dead at a cafe last month, almost all of them foreigners.

Mr. Sarfo said that for Asian recruits, the group was looking specifically for militants who had emerged from Al Qaeda’s network in the region. “People especially from Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia — they have people who used to work for Al Qaeda, and once they joined the Islamic State, they are asking them questions about their experiences and if they have contacts,” he said.

In his briefings with the German authorities, Mr. Sarfo raised the possibility that some of the recent attackers in Europe who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s leader during their assaults might have a more direct link to the group than officials believe.

Mr. Sarfo explained that the Emni keeps many of its operatives underground in Europe. They act as nodes that can remotely activate potential suicide attackers who have been drawn in by propaganda. Linking them are what Mr. Sarfo called “clean men,” new converts to Islam with no established ties to radical groups.

“These people are not in direct contact with these guys who are doing the attacks, because they know if these people start talking, they will get caught,” he said of the underground operatives.

“They mostly use people who are new Muslims, who are converts,” he said. Those “clean” converts “get in contact with the people, and they give them the message.” And in the case of some videotaped pledges of allegiance, the go-between can then send the video on to the handler in Europe, who uploads it for use by the Islamic State’s propaganda channels.

The intelligence documents and Mr. Sarfo agree that the Islamic State has made the most of its recruits’ nationalities by sending them back to plot attacks at home. Yet one important region where the Emni is not thought to have succeeded in sending trained attackers is North America, Mr. Sarfo said, recalling what the members of the branch told him.

Though dozens of Americans have become members of the Islamic State, and some have been recruited into the external operations wing, “they know it’s hard for them to get Americans into America” once they have traveled to Syria, he said.

“For America and Canada, it’s much easier for them to get them over the social network, because they say the Americans are dumb — they have open gun policies,” he said. “They say we can radicalize them easily, and if they have no prior record, they can buy guns, so we don’t need to have no contact man who has to provide guns for them.”

Training Days

Since late 2014, the Islamic State has instructed foreigners joining the group to make their trip look like a holiday in southern Turkey, including booking a return flight and paying for an all-inclusive vacation at a beach resort, from which smugglers arrange their transport into Syria, according to intelligence documents and Mr. Sarfo’s account.

That cover story creates pressure to keep things moving quickly during the recruits’ training in Syria, and most get a bare minimum — just a few days of basic weapons practice, in some instances.

“When they go back to France or in Germany, they can say, ‘I was only on holidays in Turkey,’” Mr. Sarfo said. “The longer they stay in the Islamic State, the more suspicious the secret service in the West gets, and that’s why they try to do the training as quickly as possible.”

Mr. Sarfo’s language proficiency in both German and English — he studied construction at Newham College in East London — made him attractive as a potential attacker. Though the Emni approached him several times to ask him to return to Germany, he demurred, he said.

Eventually, Mr. Sarfo, perhaps because of his burly build — 6-foot-1 and around 286 pounds when he arrived in Syria, though he has lost weight since then — was drafted into the Islamic State’s quwat khas, Arabic for special forces.

The unit only admitted single men who agreed not to marry during the duration of their training. In addition to providing the offensive force to infiltrate cities during battles, it was one of several elite units that became recruiting pools for the external operations branch, Mr. Sarfo said.

Along with his German friend, he was driven to the desert outside Raqqa.

“They dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and told us, ‘We are here,’” he said. “So we’re standing in the desert and thought to ourselves, ‘What’s going on?’” When the two Germans looked more closely, they realized there were cavelike dwellings around them. Everything above ground was painted with mud so as to be invisible to drones.

“Showering was prohibited. Eating was prohibited, too, unless they gave it to you,” Mr. Sarfo said, adding that he had shared a cave with five or six others. Even drinking water was harshly rationed. “Each dwelling received two cups of water a day, put on the doorstep,” he said. “And the purpose of this was to test us, see who really wants it, who’s firm.”

The grueling training began: hours of running, jumping, push-ups, parallel bars, crawling. The recruits began fainting.

By the second week, they were each given a Kalashnikov assault rifle and told to sleep with it between their legs until it became “like a third arm,” he said.

The punishment for failing to keep up was harsh. “There was one boy who refused to get up, because he was just too exhausted,” Mr. Sarfo told the authorities. “So they tied him to a pole with his legs and his arms and left him there.”

He learned that the special forces program involved 10 levels of training. After he graduated to Level 2, he was moved to an island on a river in Tabqa, Syria. The recruits’ sleeping spots now consisted of holes in the ground, covered by sticks and twigs. They practiced swimming, scuba diving and navigating by the stars.

Throughout his training, Mr. Sarfo rubbed shoulders with an international cadre of recruits. When he first arrived at the desert campus, he ran laps alongside Moroccans, Egyptians, at least one Indonesian, a Canadian and a Belgian. And out on the island, he learned of similar special units, including one called Jaysh al-Khalifa, or the Army of the Caliphate.

A 12-page criminal complaint indicates that the Islamic State tried to recruit at least one American into that unit, but he declined to enroll.

The man, Mohamad Jamal Khweis, a 26-year-old from Alexandria, Virginia, traveled to Syria in December, only to be captured by Kurdish troops in Iraq in March. In his debriefing with the FBI, he explained that early on, he was approached by members of the unit. “During his stay at this safe house, representatives from Jaysh Khalifa, a group described by the defendant as an ‘offensive group,’ visited the new ISIS recruits. The representatives explained that their group was responsible for accepting volunteers from foreign countries who would be trained and sent back to their countries to conduct operations and execute attacks on behalf of ISIL. The group’s requirements, among other things, were that recruits had to be single, would train in remote locations, must be free of any injuries and had to stay reclusive when returning to their home countries.”

The Big Man

As he progressed through the special forces training, Mr. Sarfo became closer with the emir of the camp, a Moroccan, who began to divulge details about how the Islamic State’s external operations effort was structured, he said. Mr. Sarfo learned that there was one outsize figure behind the group’s strategies and ambitions. “The big man behind everything is Abu Muhammad al-Adnani,” he said.

“He is the head of the Emni, and he is the head of the special forces as well,” Mr. Sarfo added. “Everything goes back to him.”

Born in the town of Binnish in northern Syria, Mr. Adnani is said to be 39, and is the subject of a $5 million bounty from the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program. But details about his life remain a mystery. There are very few available photos of him, and the one used on the State Department’s website is years old.

Mr. Sarfo explained that when recruits to the special forces finished all 10 levels of training, they were blindfolded and driven to meet Mr. Adnani, where they pledged allegiance to him directly. Mr. Sarfo was told that the blindfolds stayed on the whole time, so that even Mr. Adnani’s best-trained fighters never know what he looks like.

To the world, Mr. Adnani is better known as the official spokesman of the Islamic State, and the man who put out a global call this year for Muslims to attack unbelievers wherever they were, however they could.

“Adnani is much more than just the mouthpiece of this group,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington who tracks the group’s leadership. “He is heavily involved in external operations. He is sort of the administrative ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ at the top of the pyramid,” who signs off on attack plans, the details of which are handled by his subordinates.

During his time in Syria, Mr. Sarfo was contacted by other German fighters who wanted him to be an actor in a propaganda film aimed at German speakers. They drove to Palmyra, and Mr. Sarfo was told to hold the group’s black flag and to walk again and again in front of the camera as they filmed repeated takes. Syrian captives were forced to kneel, and the other German fighters shot them, showing an interest only in the cinematic effect.

One turned to Mr. Sarfo immediately after killing a victim and asked: “How did I look like? Did I look good, the way I executed?”

Mr. Sarfo said he had learned that videos like the one he acted in were vetted by Mr. Adnani himself in a monthly meeting of senior operatives.

“There’s a vetting procedure,” he said. “Once a month they have a shura — which is a sitting, a meeting — where all the videos and everything that is important, they start speaking about it. And Abu Muhammad al-Adnani is the head of the shura.”

Mr. Sarfo said he had started doubting his allegiance to ISIS during his training, after seeing how cruelly they treated those who could not keep up. Making the propaganda video provided his final disillusionment when he saw how many times they recorded each scene in the five-minute film. Back in Germany, when he had been inspired by similar videos, he had always assumed they were real, not staged.

He began plotting his escape, which took weeks and involved sprinting and crawling in a field of mud before crossing into Turkey. He was arrested at Bremen Airport, where he landed on July 20, 2015, and he voluntarily confessed. He is now serving a three-year term on terrorism charges.

The Lieutenants

Among the Islamic State’s innovations is the role of foreigners, especially Europeans, in the planning of attacks.

Mr. Sarfo’s account agrees with investigation documents and the assessments of terrorism experts, who say that French and Belgian citizens like Mr. Abaaoud are more than just operatives and have been given managing roles.

“It’s a creative and interesting operational road map, to be able to lean on someone like Abaaoud, who has his own network abroad,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism in Paris. “They gave him the autonomy regarding tactics and strategy, even if the operation as a whole still needs a green light from the Islamic State’s leadership.”

Looking at the current leaders of the Emni, investigators have homed in on two in particular. They go by the aliases Abu Souleymane, a French citizen, and Abu Ahmad, described as Syrian. Both are considered top lieutenants of Mr. Adnani, according to the senior American defense official and senior intelligence official.

The two men play a direct role in identifying fighters to be sent overseas, in choosing targets and in organizing logistics for operatives, including paying for smugglers to get them to Europe and, in at least one case, sending Western Union transfers, according to European intelligence documents.

A glimpse into the possible role of Abu Souleymane came from one of the hostages held by suicide bombers inside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris in November.

After gunning down dozens of concertgoers, two of the suicide bombers retreated into a hallway with a group of hostages, forcing them to sit against the windows as human shields, said the hostage, David Fritz-Goeppinger, 24. In the two-and-a-half-hour standoff that ensued, Mr. Fritz heard one of the bombers ask the other, “Should we call Souleymane?”

The second operative appeared annoyed that the first had asked the question in French, and ordered him to switch to Arabic.

“I immediately understood that, yes, this was the individual, maybe not the individual who had organized the attack, but who held a place in the hierarchy above them,” said Mr. Fritz. His testimony is also included in a detailed, 51-page report by France’s antiterrorism police. “They were absolutely, like soldiers,” awaiting orders, he said.

Souleymane, whose full nom de guerre is Abu Souleymane al-Faransi, or Abu Souleymane the Frenchman, is believed to be a French national in his 30s who is of either Moroccan or Tunisian ancestry, according to Ludovico Carlino, a senior analyst with IHS Conflict Monitor in London. Mr. Carlino says he believes that Souleymane was promoted to be the top terrorism planner for Europe after Mr. Abaaoud’s death.

A snapshot of the other senior leader, Abu Ahmad, appears in the account of a man who investigators have concluded was supposed to be part of the team of Paris attackers: an Algerian named Adel Haddadi. Mr. Haddadi said he and another member of the team, a former Lashkar-e-Taiba member from Pakistan named Muhammad Usman, were separated from two other attackers after they reached Greece by boat.

Mr. Haddadi, 28, and Mr. Usman, 22, were eventually arrested in a migrant camp in Salzburg, Austria. The two men sent alongside them became the first suicide bombers to detonate their vests outside the Stade de France during the November attacks.

After arriving in Syria and being routed to the international dormitory there in February 2015, Mr. Haddadi worked as a cook in Raqqa for months before a member of the Emni came to see him, according to French and Austrian investigation documents.

“One day, a Syrian came into the kitchen to see me and said that someone called Abu Ahmad wanted to see me,” Mr. Haddadi was quoted as saying in the Austrian record of his interrogation. He was driven to a five-story building, where another Syrian holding a walkie talkie radioed Abu Ahmad. They waited for hours before the Syrian got orders to drive the recruit to the next location. In the street, a Saudi man wearing all white was waiting, and asked Mr. Haddadi to go on a walk.

After 300 yards, they reached an empty apartment building and sat down. “I was scared, I wanted to leave, but he talked the whole time,” Mr. Haddadi told the authorities.

“He said only positive things about me, that Daesh trusted me and that I now needed to prove myself worthy of that trust. He said that Daesh was going to send me to France,” Mr. Haddadi added, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “The details, he said, I would get them once I arrived in France.”

Sometime after that, Abu Ahmad arrived. Mr. Haddadi described him as a Syrian man between 38 and 42 years old, slim with a long, black beard, and dressed all in black. He was, Mr. Haddadi said, “the giver of orders.”

Abu Ahmad brought Mr. Haddadi together with three other potential attackers, with the last man, Mr. Usman, being introduced just a day before they all set out for Europe. Mr. Haddadi and two of the other men were native Arabic speakers, and Mr. Usman spoke enough Arabic to communicate with them, the interrogation documents said.

The day of their departure, Abu Ahmad came and gave them his Turkish cellphone number, instructing them to store it in their phone as “FF,” to avoid registering a name. He gave Mr. Haddadi $2,000 in $100 bills, and they were driven to the Turkish border. A man met them in Turkey to take their photographs, and returned with Syrian passports. Another smuggler arranged their Oct. 3 boat trip to Leros, Greece.

All of these logistical steps, as well as Western Union money transfers, were organized by Abu Ahmad, one of the senior lieutenants running the Islamic State’s efforts to export terror. Until his arrest in December, Mr. Haddadi remained in touch with Abu Ahmad through messages on Telegram and via text messages to his Turkish number, according to the investigation record.

Abu Ahmad’s Turkish number was found somewhere else, too: written on a slip of paper in the pants pocket of the severed leg of one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France.

Video - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/world/middleeast/isis-german-recruit-interview.html?_r=0