AN ENDURING THREAT: EUROPE’S ISLAMIST TERROR NETWORKS THEN AND NOW Foreign training/combat: Mostefai is believed to have travelled to Syria in late 2013 or early 2014, with reports suggesting he travelled via Turkey in October 2013 and returned to France early in 2014. It is 256 unclear if he gained combat experience while in Syria. Movements: 257 He appears to have travelled through Turkey to Syria around October 2013. Criminal history: 258 A petty criminal described as a “delinquent” in his youth, Mostefai was arrested eight 259 times between 2004 and 2010 but never jailed. Known to the authorities: Mostefai had come to the attention of the French authorities in 2010 as a 260 261 radicalisation concern, and is reported to have been “the subject of a police “S” file for radicalisation”. Network and associates: -! Paris attacks (November 2015): Ahmed al-Mohamed, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Salah Abdeslam, Brahim Abdeslam, Chakib Akrouh, Bilal Hadfi, M al-Mahmod, Sami Amimour, Foued 262 Mohammed Aggad [fellow Paris attackers]. 263 264 SAMI AMIMOUR aka Abu Qital al-Faransi, Abu Hajia Role: 265 Gunman at the Bataclan concert hall during the Paris attacks. Bio: 266 A 28-year-old French citizen, Amimour was born and lived in Drancy, in the north of Paris. He graduated from school with his baccalaureate and worked as a bus driver. By 2012, friends had noticed a 267 change in his behaviour, and in October 2012 he was arrested over alleged plans to travel to Yemen. He disappeared in 2013 and several months later his father travelled to Raqqa, finding Amimour fighting with IS. Amimour refused to return and is reported to only have reappeared in Paris shortly before the 268 attacks. Foreign training/combat: Amimour travelled to Syria sometime in September 2013. Once in Syria, where 269 he fought for IS and was injured, he lived in Raqqa and married. Movements: Travelled to Syria in 2013. ! ! 256 Newton-Small, J., ‘Paris Attacker Is an Example of France’s Homegrown Terrorists’, Time, 15 November 2015, available at: http://time.com/4113864/paris- attacks-isis-homegrown-terrorism/, last visited: 9 August 2016; and ‘Profile: Omar Ismail Mostefai’, BBC News, 15 November 2015. 257 ‘Profile: Omar Ismail Mostefai’, BBC News, 15 November 2015. 258 Newton-Small, J., ‘Paris Attacker Is an Example of France’s Homegrown Terrorists’, Time, 15 November 2015. 259 ‘Profile: Omar Ismail Mostefai’, BBC News, 15 November 2015. 260 ibid. 261 Chrisafis, A., ‘Life of Paris attacker Omar Ismail Mostefai: from petty crime to radicalisation’, Guardian, 16 November 2015. 262 ‘Paris attacks: Who were the attackers?’, BBC News, 27 April 2016. 263 Sommers, J., ‘Islamic State Propaganda Video Features Paris Attackers Bilal Hadfi And Samy Amimour’, The Huffington Post, 25 January 2016. 264 Cole, B., ‘Father of Bataclan killer reveals how he travelled to Syria to try to convince him to return home but was rejected’, Daily Mail Online, 16 November 2015, available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3320975/Father-Bataclan-killer-reveals-travelled-Syria-try-convince-return-home-rejected.html, last visited: 9 August 2016. 265 Farmer, B. et al., ‘Who is Salah Abdeslam and who were the Paris terrorists? Everything we know about the Isil attackers’, The Telegraph, 18 March 2016. 266 ibid. 267 ‘Paris attacks: Samy Amimour, the ‘nice guy’ who became a jihadi’, Financial Times, 19 November 2015, available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/472cec90-8eb7- 11e5-8be4-3506bf20cc2b.html#axzz4C76D1Jfi, last visited: 9 August 2016. 268 Farmer, B. et al., ‘Who is Salah Abdeslam and who were the Paris terrorists? Everything we know about the Isil attackers’, The Telegraph, 18 March 2016. 269 ‘Paris attacks: Samy Amimour, the ‘nice guy’ who became a jihadi’, Financial Times, 19 November 2015. ! ! 26 !