The Actual Bombers

While this could chance, so far every bomber identified in the Paris attacks is European. The "blame Syria refugees!" angle doesn't seem to be holding up very well to actual scrutiny. How do you stop someone like this?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brahim-abdeslam-paris-attacks_564a687de4b045bf3df092fd


Brahim Abdeslam's Path From Barkeeper To Paris Suicide Bomber

Brahim Abdeslam's journey from barkeeper to suicide bomber remains a mystery.


BRUSSELS, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Two weeks ago, the mayor of Molenbeek ordered the closure of a neighborhood bar where Brussels police had found young men dealing drugs and smoking dope over the summer.

Last Friday, the owner blew himself up at another laid-back corner cafe, this time in Paris, on a mission of retribution from Islamic State.

Brahim Abdeslam's journey from barkeeper to suicide bomber remains a mystery, along with the whereabouts of his younger brother Salah, now on the run as Europe's most wanted man but until recently the manager of Brahim's bar, Les Beguines.

The brothers sold the business just six weeks ago.

There is a seeming disconnect between the ownership by Muslims - whose religion forbids the use of alcohol and tobacco - of a bar, where drugs were being dealt, on a quiet street in the low-rent Brussels borough of Molenbeek who have become the focus of a manhunt for violent Islamists with ties to Syria.

Yet time and again, investigations after attacks like those that killed 129 people in Paris have uncovered tales of workaday Arab immigrant lives, assimilated to the profane daily cares and pleasures of European cities, that have turned, unseen to family and friends, into explosions of pious, suicidal fanaticism.

"It's shocking, especially when it's people you've hung out with," said 25-year-old Nabil, as he walked home from work to his apartment nearby, past the cafe on rue des Beguines, now shuttered by court order, which Brahim Abdeslam, 31, had owned.

"They were regular guys, who enjoyed a laugh," he said, still wearing his workclothes and a Nike baseball cap. "There was nothing radical about them. ... They were here just last week hanging out. ... I think they were indoctrinated. ... There is some mastermind behind it all."

"LIKE SYLVESTER STALLONE"

Hicham, also 25 and in blue tracksuit and sneakers, echoed that view of Brahim and Salah: "They smoked. They didn't go to the mosque or anything. We saw them every day at the cafe," he said. Brahim, with a voice "like Sylvester Stallone," could, he conceded, at times be "a bit crazy."

"We played cards. We talked about football," he added. "We talked about the everyday. Nothing jihadist, not about Islam."

Those sentiments were echoed by family including a third brother, a local council employee, who was released on Monday after two days in custody, and by former workmates of Salah at the tram repair shop - though the latter told public radio that the "joker" Salah lost that job in 2011 for absenteeism.

Belgian media also reported that Salah spent time in jail for robbery five years ago alongside another Molenbeek man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28. French investigators believe Abaaoud may have ordered the Paris attacks from Syria, where he has become an Internet propagandist for Islamic State under the nom de guerre Abu Omar al-Belgiki - the Belgian.

Belgian police could not confirm any previous record for the brothers or whether they had been under surveillance.

What is clear is that the bar the brothers ran had annoyed some of its neighbors and, in August, been raided by police.

Details posted on the door, on the ground floor of a typical brick-built 19th-century townhouse and confirmed by police to Reuters, stated: "The premises have been used for the consumption of banned hallucinogenic substances."

The notice ordered a five-month closure from Nov. 5, and said police found "a strong smell of drugs" and ashtrays containing "partially smoked joints," while a number of customers were found to be carrying drugs on their persons.

The notice said the manager had been given a chance, on Sept. 4, to object. "But he did not reply to our invitation."

Molenbeek Mayor Francoise Schepmans has described Molenbeek as a "breeding ground for radical violence," suffering from high youth unemployment and overcrowding. Belgian ministers have promised to "clean it up."

The Abdeslams do not appear to have figured among the jobless. Legal documents reviewed by Reuters and first reported by Belgian newspaper L'Echo show that Brahim, a French citizen born in Brussels, formed a company in March 2013 to run the bar.

In December that year, Brahim stepped aside as manager of the company in favor of Salah, but remained the main owner. Two other family members held small stakes at various times.

On Sept. 30 this year, after the closure warning, the family sold out to an individual who gave an address in southern Belgium. That person could not be contacted by Reuters.

The documents listed both brothers' address as the family home in a four-story house facing Molenbeek town hall across a cobbled square. There, Mohammed Abdeslam, the brother held by police, told reporters the family were stunned by events.

"We've never had problems with the law," he said on the doorstep. "My parents are in shock and can't quite take in what's happened," he added, saying they had had no idea Brahim was going to Paris on Friday or where Salah now was.

According to French police, Brahim detonated a suicide vest at the Comptoir Voltaire, a cafe close to the Bataclan music hall where gunmen killed 89. The explosion seriously wounded several other people.

Salah, police say, rented a Volkswagen car that was found near the Bataclan with Belgian plates and he was later checked, but not arrested, near the Belgian border, in a car with two others.[/]

 

So far, none of those people are amongst the bombers. The actual bombers that have been identified are all European, as with the guy in the article above.

 

Really?

Title: The Actual Bombers

1st Sentence: While this could chance (typo), so far every bomber identified in the Paris attacks is European.

 

Yes - and that concern was amplified because people (wrongly, so far) think that these refugees in Europe helped conduct the Paris attacks.

Yes, I did. They weren't the bombers here. People act like they are. They are, so far, wrong.

And how many of those are Syrian refugees? There are much easier ways for ISIS to get people here than through an extensive refugee process that is currently taking more than a year to get people admitted to another country that may or may not be the US.