Word: cherifi
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...Though Cherifi's growing involvement with radical Islam drew him to London, he was unable to follow his fellow extremists to al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Although investigators say the by-now-unemployed Cherifi methodically liquidated family accounts to finance that trip, health problems posed by diabetes derailed his candidacy as a fighter. Police suspect Islamist leaders in London urged Cherifi to dedicate himself instead to vital covert logistics work in Paris - a role more securely assumed without the conspicuous Afghan link - providing money, documents, safe houses and go-between services for members of newly established European cells...
Despite his behind-the-scenes support role, Cherifi still apparently harbored ambitions of martyrdom. "During a search of Cherifi's house, we found a will leaving a portion of his worth to the mujahedin," says the French official. Accompanying that document was a letter Cherifi wanted read to his son, then just 18 months old, in the event of his death. "It urged the boy to fulfill his father's dream of becoming a warrior of Islam and martyr of jihad...
French terror expert Roland Jacquard says the apparent fanaticism beneath Cherifi's well-adjusted exterior is characteristic of Europe's current generation of Islamist operatives. "Recruiters dig through what you or I may consider success, achievement or promise to find that ember of racial, social or religious anger and resentment," Jacquard says. In cases like Cherifi's, he adds, that ember is often a lingering fury at the racial and economic prejudices that French Arabs and their families feel they suffer in French society. Ironically, that anger can be fanned into flame by their own success in climbing...
...that, say French authorities, is exactly why these operatives represent such a grave threat in the battle against terrorism: they are hard to detect and their numbers are impossible to estimate. All the murderous designs of people like Atta and Reid would certainly fail without the kind of help Cherifi is accused of providing...
...Doha, who also goes by the names of Amar Makhlulif, Rachid Boukhalfa and Rachid Kefflous, is suspected of having been one of Ouassini Cherifi's key London contacts. An Algerian, he came to Britain in 1999 after allegedly being involved with an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Doha is suspected of being the mastermind behind the foiled millennium bomb attack on Los Angeles airport...