Djamel Beghal, the charming and chilling mentor of Paris jihadist attackers

[Valin]

Washington Post:

Michael Birnbaum and Souad Mekhennet

Feb. 6 2014

 

Video grab of Djamel Beghal at home with his children in 2001. Beghal has been jailed for 10 years in France for leading a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris. (NTI/European Pressphoto Agency)

PARIS — Those who have met him say he is alternately charming and chilling. He is the man who stoked the friendship between two of last month’s Paris attackers — and he has been sitting in a French prison for years.

 

Djamel Beghal, said to be one of al-Qaeda’s top recruiters in Europe, tutored the future gunmen about the finer points of radical Islamic practice. He cajoled them to support Palestinian orphans who he said would grow up to be “tomorrow’s fighters.” And he was convicted of leading them in a failed attempt to spring an Algerian terrorism convict from prison.

 

Now, one month after the bloody assault that claimed 17 victims in Paris and struck fear in the heart of Europe, Beghal is under close watch by authorities as they seek to establish his possible role in the attacks. What investigators discover might be especially critical, counterterrorism officials say, because of emerging signs that elements of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, once fierce rivals, may have collaborated in the attacks.

 

That would be a worrisome development in the fight against global terrorism, since until now, the two groups have had bases of support in different regions, with different goals. The Islamic State has mostly focused on its own fight for territory within Syria and Iraq. Al-Qaeda has clashed with it.

 

(Snip)