{"id":4452,"date":"2019-04-02T10:06:46","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T09:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cat-int.org\/?p=4452"},"modified":"2019-04-25T10:08:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T09:08:56","slug":"who-are-the-12-accused-french-jihadists-to-be-tried-by-iraq-identified-by-the-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/2019\/04\/02\/who-are-the-12-accused-french-jihadists-to-be-tried-by-iraq-identified-by-the-cat\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are the 12 accused French jihadists to be tried by Iraq? (identified by the CAT)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source : AFP\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Baghdad (AFP)<\/p>\n

Iraq will try 12 French nationals accused of fighting for the Islamic State group, who were caught by US-backed fighters in neighbouring Syria and transferred to Baghdad in February.<\/p>\n

No court date has been set, but the suspects will be tried according to Iraq’s counterterrorism law — which can dole out the death penalty to anyone who joined a « terrorist » group, even if they were not explicitly fighting.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Below are profiles of the 12 detainees, according to an Iraqi security official, the French Terrorism Analysis Center (CAT) and other sources compiled by AFP.<\/p>\n

– Leonard Lopez –<\/p>\n

Even before IS, 32-year-old Leonard Lopez was known to French authorities for his activity on Francophone jihadist website Ansar al-Haqq in the 2000s.<\/p>\n

In July 2015, the native Parisian travelled with his wife and two children to IS-held Mosul in northern Iraq before entering Syria, according to French investigators.<\/p>\n

Lopez, known as Abu Ibrahim al-Andalusi after joining IS, was sentenced in absentia in 2018 for his involvement in Ansar al-Haqq but is also wanted on other charges.<\/p>\n

– Kevin Gonot –<\/p>\n

Kevin Gonot, 32, entered Syria through Turkey to join IS rival and former Al-Qaeda branch Al-Nusra Front, according to a « confession » published by Iraq’s judiciary.<\/p>\n

He then pledged allegiance to IS, fighting under the name Abu Sufyan, before being arrested in Syria with his mother, wife, and half-brother Thomas Collange, 31.<\/p>\n

He said his father was killed in IS’s de facto Syrian capital, Raqa.<\/p>\n

French courts have already sentenced Gonot in absentia to nine years in prison, according to CAT.<\/p>\n

– Fodil Tahar Aouidate –<\/p>\n

Fodil Tahar Aouidate, 32, made a first trip to Syria in 2013 and returned in 2014 to join IS, according to the French judiciary.<\/p>\n

After 130 people were killed in IS’s 2015 Paris attacks, Aouidate appeared in a video saying it was his « great pleasure and joy to see these unbelievers suffer as we suffer here. »<\/p>\n

Authorities also linked him to Belgium’s Salafist movement, including the Paris attacks mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud.<\/p>\n

France convicted two of Aouidate’s sisters for « financing terrorism » for sending 15,000 euros to relatives in Syria.<\/p>\n

– Mustapha Merzoughi –<\/p>\n

A former French army soldier, Mustapha Merzoughi told Iraqi interrogators he joined IS after « research on social media and websites by IS and Al-Nusra Front ».<\/p>\n

He travelled to Aleppo in northern Syria for « religious and military training » then pledged allegiance to IS in Mosul.<\/p>\n

Merzoughi, who is of Tunisian origin, hails from Toulouse — also the hometown of Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain, who notoriously claimed the Paris attacks and were killed in Baghouz, IS’s last bastion in east Syria.<\/p>\n

– Yassin Sakkam –<\/p>\n

Yassin Sakkam, 29, left France in late 2014 to fight with IS, posting online pictures of himself carrying arms and speaking to multiple media outlets about IS.<\/p>\n

France has been seeking his arrest since 2016 and Kurdish authorities detained him in Syria in 2017.<\/p>\n

His brother Karim committed a suicide attack at the Iraqi-Jordanian border in 2015, according to CAT.<\/p>\n

– Karam el-Harchaoui –<\/p>\n

Karam el-Harchaoui, 32, left for Syria in 2014 from Belgium. According to Belgian daily HLN, his younger brother and their Belgian wives were also IS members.<\/p>\n

– Salim Machou –<\/p>\n

At 41, Salim Machou was a member of the infamous Tariq ibn Ziyad brigade, « a European foreign terrorist fighter cell » that carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria and planned the Paris and Brussels attacks, according to US officials.<\/p>\n

– Vianney Ouraghi –<\/p>\n

Vianney Ouraghi, 28, left France for Syria in 2013 and joined Al-Nusra, before jumping to IS when the latter declared its « caliphate » in 2014, according to CAT.<\/p>\n

Of Algerian origin, Ouraghi told his Iraqi interrogators that he had abandoned studies in psychology in France after « having been persuaded to join IS through social media ».<\/p>\n

He admitted undergoing religious and military training and was also present at « a foreign fighter shelter in Mosul ».<\/p>\n

– Brahim Nejara –<\/p>\n

Brahim Nejara, 33, was involved in IS’s foreign fighter operations, according to CAT.<\/p>\n

He helped foreign fighters join IS in Syria, persuaded one of his brothers to commit an attack in France, and was associated with Foued Mohamed-Aggad, one of the suicide bombers at the Bataclan theatre in the 2015 Paris attacks.<\/p>\n

– Bilel Kabaoui –<\/p>\n

This 32-year-old hails from Sevres, around Paris, and travelled to IS territory in the summer of 2014, said CAT.<\/p>\n

– Mohammed Berriri –<\/p>\n

At 24, Mohammed Berriri worked with IS across various Syrian provinces, according to CAT, who did not specify whether he had spent time in Iraq with the group.<\/p>\n

Iraq’s prime minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, has hinted that Baghdad may try foreigners who have never fought in Iraq, saying his authorities had been pursuing some who « provided logistical support to those in Iraq, because as you know the battlefields became one. »<\/p>\n

– Mourad Delhomme –<\/p>\n

Mourad Delhomme, 40, is of Algerian origin and was arrested around a year ago in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor, according to the CAT.<\/p>\n

CAT describes him as a « jihadist veteran who worked as a judge » in IS courts, which regularly doled out harsh punishments including death sentences and lashings to anyone who violated the group’s ultra-conservative rules<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source : AFP\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[62,83],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4453,"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions\/4453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}