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| Europe | |
| French Muslim family takes path to militancy | |
| 2004-08-02 | |
| When Chellali Benchellali moved to France 41 years ago, his path seemed clear enough. Escaping the misery of his native Algeria, he hoped to get a job, marry, raise a family and blend into the French melting pot. He got part way there. But for the last six months, Benchellali has been in a high-security French prison, along with his wife and two of his sons, all accused of helping to plot a Qaeda-style chemical attack in Europe. A third son has just been released from the U.S. detention center at Guantänamo Bay, Cuba, one of four Frenchmen handed over to the French authorities last week. The family's journey from yearning immigrants to alleged Islamic militants - accused of harboring a makeshift laboratory in their suburban Lyon apartment where one son was said to have been trying to make biological and chemical bombs - is an extreme but still emblematic manifestation of a quiet crisis spreading through Europe's growing Arab underclass...
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| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #7 I thought I recognized the name... |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2004-08-03 12:01:26 AM |
| #6 cookie post |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2004-08-02 11:51:23 PM |
| #5 And just remember, kids...wait for it... The family that slays together, stays together. I'm so sorry. I couldn't resist. |
| Posted by: dreadnought 2004-08-02 11:47:19 AM |
| #4 On his fifth trip there, Croatian soldiers seized him and two other men from Venissieux and held them in brutal conditions for five months. He returned with even stronger religious convictions and began preaching in the ground-floor activity room of his apartment block, which became known as the Abu Bakr mosque. His sermons took on an increasingly radical tone. It would come as no surprise if someone, somewhere, was the catalyst that hastened this guy on his path towards extremism via words put into his head. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-08-02 11:23:16 AM |
| #3 Menad had quit his job by then and was dismissed from a string of others. In 1995, he left for Syria to study Arabic and the Koran. He spent several months in Sudan, where the Al Qaeda network was coalescing. He returned to Venissieux in 1996 a bearded fundamentalist. Hi, I'm Sally Struthers. Are you a loser? Total incompetent? Well, "The Imam Jihadi Syrian-Sudan Institute for Holy Men and Window Washing" might be the chance to break out of your rut and help you break into the growing field of Islamic scholar. Have the respect of your peers! Meet chicks! Kill the infidel! Drive a Corvette! |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-08-02 9:13:49 AM |
| #2 And in Denmark 70% of the rapes are by Muslims (4%). At least in the year 700 they had enough courtesy to haul the Spanish women to North Africa before raping them. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-08-02 8:40:49 AM |
| #1 I recall reading that 50% of the population of French prisons are muslim. |
| Posted by: mhw 2004-08-02 8:34:48 AM |