Karim
Cheurfi: From the Cauldron of Prison to the Streets of Paris
by Patrick Dunleavy
IPT News
April 24, 2017
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 The initial reports
regarding Islamic terrorist Karim Cheurfi, the man responsible for the
latest attack that killed French police officer Xavier Jugele and wounded several others, contained the all-too-familiar phrase – "known to
authorities."
What actually was known? Cheurfi had a predisposition for violence,
animosity toward authority – he had tried to kill police officers twice
before – and a sense of alienation. They also knew that he had spent a
significant period of his life in a place that some authorities called a radicalizing cauldron, the French prison
system. Inside those prisons, a small group of Islamic terrorists was
effectively radicalizing other inmates who came in as petty criminals with
no religious leanings, said Pascal Mailhos, past director of France's
domestic intelligence agency.
Mailhos' warning proved prophetic as French prisons spawned terrorists
like Mohammed Merah, who in 2012 murdered police officers and Jewish school children in
Toulouse, and Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a police trainee before
storming the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket and killing four hostages. Charlie
Hebdo attacker Said Kouachi, like Karim Cheurfi, came out of the joint radicalized and ready to kill law enforcement, military
personnel and innocent civilians in the name of Allah.
This problem is not unique to France. Former inmates who turned to the
violent path of jihad plotted or carried out terrorist attacks in the United States, Belgium, Canada,
Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom.
For some, particularly for those who have spent time in prison, the
radicalization process from conversion to violence is more accelerated.
"Some individuals, particularly those who convert in prison, may be
attracted directly to jihadi violence...for this group, jihad represents a
convenient outlet for (their) aggressive behavior," the Central
Intelligence Agency said in a report, "Homegrown Jihad – Pathway to
Terrorism."
When you combine the ingredients of violent aggressive behavior,
animosity toward authority, incarceration, and radical Islamic ideology,
you will almost certainly produce a deadly toxin. French prosecutor
Francois Molins insisted that Cheurfi showed no signs of radicalization
prior to the attack. Missing the signs could be the result of bad eyesight
or, a lack of training. "We don't have anyone trained for
anti-radicalization," said David Dulondel, the head of the union representing
officers at France's Fleury-Merogis maximum security prison. "We can't
say whether someone is in the process of radicalizing or not."
Despite an acknowledged problem with insufficient training, groups like
the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) seek to censor any mention
of Islamic radicalization from American law enforcement and military training.
In 2004, the FBI's official definition of radicalization was "the
process of attracting and possibly converting inmates to radical
Islam." They since have been pressured to change the term to
"violent extremism."
Removing warning labels from canisters containing caustic material does
not render the substance inside harmless. It only increases the risk of a
deadly incident. Toxic waste spills are often the result of carelessness.
Prison radicalization should not be treated this way. We must put the
tools in place to monitor and control this threat. Others have done it.
Following last month's Westminster Bridge attack by Khalid Masood, British authorities announced the
formation of a task force that will combine intelligence, law
enforcement, corrections and probation personnel to look at literature,
clergy, and other influences available in prisons. The task force will also
closely monitor recently released inmates for changes in behavior or
association with known radical mosques or people. France, which has suffered
its share of jihadi violence carried out by ex-inmates, had to admit that its program to address prison
radicalization had been an utter failure. Yet it has not made any
significant changes.
Here in the United States, it is imperative that the Justice Department
and the FBI revise the Correctional Intelligence Initiative Program to include
the proper vetting of clergy and a post release component to track people
who were radicalized or previously incarcerated for terrorist crimes. The
initiative started in 2003 with a mission to "detect, deter, and
disrupt efforts by terrorist and extremist groups to radicalize or recruit
within all federal, state, territorial, tribal and local prison
populations."
Failure to effectively address the ongoing threat is not an acceptable
option. At some point there will be a price to pay.
IPT Senior Fellow Patrick Dunleavy is the former Deputy Inspector
General for New York State Department of Corrections and author of The Fertile Soil of Jihad. He currently
teaches a class on terrorism for the United States Military Special
Operations School.
Related Topics: Patrick
Dunleavy, Champs
Elysees attack, Xavier
Jugele, prison
radicalization, Karim
Cheurfi, Pascal
Mailhos, Homegrown
Jihad – Pathway to Terrorism, David
Dulondel, Francois
Molins, CAIR,
Correctional
Intelligence Initiative
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