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Some Of Our Terrorists Are Missing
Four jihadi terror suspects were released from Guantanamo Bay into French custody yesterday amid grumbles that the United States failed to return the full set.
France expected at least six suspects to return from the camp yesterday in what is being described as a "spring clean" of minor terrorists before legal proceedings begin against their leaders. It is thought that two men refused to sign papers authorising their return to France.
Unlike in Britain, where the media treated the return of terror suspects as if they had been a party of Sunday school teachers who had lost their way, France's media was strangely muted on the affair. The return made the front page of elite newspaper Le Monde, but was well down the list of news items on the country's main television news bulletin.
France's legal response was more robust too: The four were whisked from an Army air base in Normandie to Paris by the internal security services, where they could be held for several years before the authorities decide what to do with them. It is likely, though, that they will face minor "consorting with terrorists" charges.
This is in stark contrast to Britain's release of its prisoners. Each man will cost the taxpayer £1 million annually in surveillance fees.
Perhaps France's attitude springs from the men's records. There are obvious questions on why they travelled to the world's most vicious theocracy in 2001 when there was little to interest outsiders beyond terror training camps, not to mention why they were fighting their own country's soldiers when the Allies invaded (none of these questions have been answered satisfactorally by the terror suspects or their apologists). However, French authorities describe them as "Jihad footsoldiers" rather than leaders in the terrorist war on the west.
According to the Independent, the four are no strangers to terror activities.
The preacher father of one of the men is already being held in connection with a terror network said to be planning attacks on Russian targets in France. The man's brother is also being held. A second suspect joined the first in his voyage to Pakistan using false passports.
Another of the four fled France after his conviction in absentia for involvement in a terror plot to strike during 1998's Football World Cup.
A fourth is suspected of having ties to a Frankfurt terror cell.
Judicial officials say that the men admit travelling to the terror camps.
Anyone who spent time in these camps is a danger to society: The fact that the terror suspects were held in legal limbo does not diminish the threat they pose. It remains to be seen how seriously France will take this threat.
