Ahmad Rahami: Fixture in Family’s Business and, Lately, a ‘Completely Different Person’

(..) Ahmad Khan Rahami (..) In recent years, though, some friends noticed a marked change in his personality and religious devotion after what they believed was a trip to Afghanistan, where he and his relatives are from.

(..) Around four years ago, though, Mr. Rahami disappeared for a while. Mr. Jones said one of the younger Rahami brothers told him that he had gone to Afghanistan. When he returned, some patrons noticed a certain transformation. He grew a beard and exchanged his typical wardrobe of T-shirts and sweatpants for traditional Muslim garb. He began to pray in the back of the store.

His previous genial bearing turned more stern. “It’s like he was a completely different person,” Mr. Jones said. “He got serious and completely closed off.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/nyregion/ahmad-khan-rahami-bombing-suspect.html?_r=0

for Europe’s leaders, who now consider themselves at war with the Islamic State after large-scale terrorist attacks at home, the challenge is more complicated: The enemy’s hide-outs are ghettoized parts of Paris, Brussels and other European cities that amount to mini failed states inside their own borders.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/world/europe/a-quandary-for-europe-fighting-a-war-on-isis-within-its-borders.html?_r=0

The European countries with the most residents either fighting in Syria or Iraq, planning to go to fight or having returned from the fight are France, with about 1,800 to 1,850; Germany and Britain, each with roughly 750 to 800; and Belgium, with 450,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/us/politics/isis-spreading-in-europe-clapper-warns.html

Valls said nearly 15,000 people in France are being tracked because they are suspected of being in the process of radicalization, while 1,350 are under investigation — 293 of them for alleged links with a terrorism network.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/09/11/world/europe/ap-eu-france-plot-arrest.html

According to German newspaper Die Welt, Kepel said the terror group’s aim is to incite hatred towards Muslims from the rest of the society which would eventually radicalise others to the point that Europe could enter into full-blown civil war.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1775496/massive-european-civil-war-predicted-by-scholar-of-islam-who-says-jobless-young-muslims-are-increasingly-turning-to-radical-groups/

Attack over women’s ‘shorts’ in southern France inflames social media

Controversy around female clothing in France gained further momentum after a dozen young men assaulted a family in the country’s south. Males suffered a severe beating after attackers deemed the women’s clothes excessively revealing.

The incident occurred last Sunday in the city of Toulon, southern France. According to local prosecutor Bernard Marchal, the family of two sisters, their husbands, their brother and three children aged between 10 and 14 had been riding bikes and rollerblading through an eastern neighborhood of the city. They were approached by a group of about 10 young men, who insulted the women for wearing ‘inappropriate’ clothing. The husbands and brother intervened and were severely beaten. One of them suffered multiple facial fractures, and another got his nose broken.

“They [the attackers] shouted to them [the women] 'whores' and 'go on, get naked’,” the Valeurs Acuelles magazine quoted Marchal as saying.

Two suspects, reportedly one 17-year-old and one 19-year-old, were apprehended on Tuesday. It is thought they have a preexisting criminal record. The identity of the alleged perpetrators remains undisclosed. An investigation is underway to track down the others.

Mayor of Toulon Hubert Falco said that “attacking my fellow citizens in shorts is abnormal and pitiable.”

“I am happy that thanks to the efficiency of the national police and CCTV cameras of the city, we could apprehend the perpetrators. One does not attack a woman because she is wearing shorts. This heinous act must be punished harshly,” France Bleu quoted the Mayor as saying.

One of the victims, named only as Marie, commented on the incident to the Nice Matin newspaper on Friday.

“We were not wearing shorts. We were in sportswear. One youngster badmouthed us and then things quickly escalated,” newspaper quotes the victim.

There is no information on the alleged perpetrators’ identities, nationalities, citizenship or religion. However, some in France linked the attacks on short-wearers to the burkini controversy and Islam in general. Julien Leonardelli, the department secretary for the far-right National Front in Haute-Garonne, claimed on Twitter, that "Sharia is already installed in Toulon."

https://www.rt.com/news/358949-france-toulon-attack-shorts/