We got him
March 19, 2016 1:11 PM   Subscribe

Having evaded capture and been the 'most wanted man' in Europe for the four months following the Paris attacks Salah Abdelslam was arrested yesterday 500 metres from his childhood home in the now infamous Brussels suburb of Molenbeek.

The Brussels police tracked down Abdelslam following a raid in the southern suburb of Forest earlier this week. While Friday's arrest is seen as a victor for the Belgian authorities they continue to face criticism for their handling of the security challenge caused by radicalism.

The 26 year old French national will fight against extradition to France.

Paris attacks previously on Metafilter
posted by roolya_boolya (30 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 


🇫🇷
posted by sbutler at 1:35 PM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


I find the pizza order story suspicious, given the other reports that they traced his mobile,which seems more likely. Also, no other reports mention children at the scene, which given that there was gunfire, would probably have been widely reported.

That said, well done Brussels cops for bring him in alive and barely wounded. I think the European warrant will prevail, and he will stand trial in France.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 1:38 PM on March 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


"The 26 year old French national will fight against extradition to France. "

welcome back into our civilisation, Mr Accused Co-Terrorist Person
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 2:11 PM on March 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


How can he be of French nationality if he was born in Belgium, and his parents were from Morocco?

Also, people are arrested in the Netherlands for possession of marijuana (from his wikipedia page)?
posted by el io at 2:25 PM on March 19, 2016


How can he be of French nationality if he was born in Belgium, and his parents were from Morocco?

If his parents acquired French nationality and then moved to Belgium, presumably.
posted by howfar at 2:29 PM on March 19, 2016


El Io, Washington DC now has nominally more lax laws than Holland regarding street possession of weed.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:38 PM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


How can he be of French nationality if he was born in Belgium, and his parents were from Morocco?

According to French wikipedia, his father is of Moroccan descent but born in Algeria back when it was a French colony (as was Morocco at the time), and he lived in Aubervilliers just outside Paris for an unspecified time before moving to Belgium. No idea how citizenship worked in colonial France, but being born in a colony probably simplified things a bit...
posted by effbot at 2:43 PM on March 19, 2016


How can he be of French nationality if he was born in Belgium, and his parents were from Morocco?

According the the French wikipedia page on him, both of his parents had French nationality (having lived there before moving to Brussels) and hence their children did too. Sorry I couldn't find a source in English.
posted by roolya_boolya at 2:45 PM on March 19, 2016


And jinx...
posted by roolya_boolya at 2:46 PM on March 19, 2016


Having evaded capture and been the 'most wanted man' in Europe for the four months following the Paris attacks Salah Abdelslam was arrested yesterday 500 metres from his childhood home in the now infamous Brussels suburb of Molenbeek

To be fair to the police Brussels is at least 1000 meters wide so he could have been like anywhere.
posted by srboisvert at 3:58 PM on March 19, 2016 [15 favorites]


His brother Mohamed gave a couple of intense interviews right after the facts in November that provide some insight into Salah's family life.
posted by progosk at 4:23 PM on March 19, 2016


I wonder if he'll be given a 30 year safety period or the extremely rare Life Without Parole.
posted by Talez at 4:37 PM on March 19, 2016


I find the pizza order story suspicious

Brussels University's RPG society will be glad to see the end of the police raids.
posted by biffa at 4:58 PM on March 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


Suspicious pizza order led police to Paris attackers.

Reminds me of how War Machine (the MMA assface who beat his girlfriend) was caught when he left his secret hideout to go get Chinese food.

I find the pizza order story suspicious

Maybe, maybe. I know that the whole thing about this manhunt had been the fact that this guy was well-protected by his allies. I am sure that even people who don't literally support ISIS were also well-cowed by death threats. It doesn't matter that Brussels is not a huge place - it's easy to hide people who have help being hidden.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:33 PM on March 19, 2016


French secret police are up to their necks in all this. Many al Qaeda guys were allowed to wander back and to freely from Syria when overthrowing Assad was the big thing. All in mainstream sources.
posted by colie at 5:35 PM on March 19, 2016


WP piece laying the but-some-of-them-were-refugees trope to rest.
posted by progosk at 1:29 AM on March 20, 2016


From the Banlieues to the Bataclan: A Trip on Samy Amimour's Bus Route
posted by adamvasco at 7:15 AM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also, people are arrested in the Netherlands for possession of marijuana (from his wikipedia page)?

Possession of marijuana is still technically a misdemeanor in the Netherlands. He may have been caught with more than five grams on him.
posted by neushoorn at 9:13 AM on March 20, 2016




Does the World Socialist Web Site have a cite for that particular claim? I'm having problems finding where they got that.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:02 AM on March 21, 2016


Also weird: WSWS claims that Abdelslam, et al. were not behaving like people on the run, despite the fact that he had been hiding for months in end, and the article doesn't even bother mentioning, say, the forged passport found for "Choukri" (cite). Do people ordinarily carry around forged passports? Why did they make the choice to not mention this?

The article also asserts that being forced to run and hide for four months a sort of escape "without hindrance". (Nobody tell WSWS what "hindrance" means, or even "without".) Besides, if ISIS really was just a NATO puppet show, or at the very least some sort of officially sanctioned naughtiness, then why wouldn't Salah Abdelslam have been caught or killed instantaneously? Or, why would he ever be caught at all? Nothing about being caught after a months-long manhunt is any more inherently suspicious than those other results.

Like, the sum of that op-ed is just the idea that the very fact this guy was able to sneak around is somehow evidence in and of itself of a conspiracy to let ISIS attacks happen. It is inconceivable to the author that intelligence/police agencies could ever fail to track or apprehend the right target, especially in advance - each failure must instead be some kind of high-level permission. The whole thing is such an boringly obvious example of pathological conspiracy-style thinking.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:34 AM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is very much breaking news, but there has been what looks to me like a terrorist attack in Brussels' airport with "up to 10 people were killed and 30 wounded" in two explosions.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:37 AM on March 22, 2016


...and at least one additional explosion, apparently also with casualties, at the Maalbeek metro station, near EU offices.
posted by kickingtheground at 1:42 AM on March 22, 2016


Like, the sum of that op-ed is just the idea that the very fact this guy was able to sneak around is somehow evidence in and of itself of a conspiracy to let ISIS attacks happen. It is inconceivable to the author that intelligence/police agencies could ever fail to track or apprehend the right target, especially in advance

It's standard practice to have contacts within these groups that the secret police nurture and allow to operate, as part of the long process of creating informers and assets who can be 'turned' as and when is most effective in the overall quest to assure the power of the state. That's why these guys are sneaking around all over the place, not necessarily due to 'false flag' conspiracies or incompetence. That's why this guy was shouting his name at the time of his arrest (reportedly).

The issue becomes acute however when the individuals commit crimes, and this exposes how the 'security services' are employed to look after the security of the state first and citizens second.
posted by colie at 2:09 AM on March 22, 2016


Merde - what a perfect storm of tests to all that is/was Europe.
posted by progosk at 2:31 AM on March 22, 2016


A profile of Sven Mary, the lawyer who has taken on Abdeslam's defence.
posted by progosk at 2:43 AM on March 22, 2016




My God, how horrible. Poor Brussels.

Colie, we are all aware of the general disrupt/turn/arrest dynamic in law enforcement (and warfare). What you still haven't addressed are any of the specific glaring problems raised with WSWS's op-ed. The cite-free claims are transparent. The "without hindrance" line is inherently comedic. The omission of little things like forged passports is damning evidence of a mentality that has already reached its conclusions.

All we are left with is an idea with two readings: one vague and obvious, the other precise and imaginary.

The first, vague and obvious: undercover work and surveillance necessarily entails waiting and listening. It is *possible* for a situation to arise in which people wait too long. However, there is literally zero evidence to indicate that this happened here. If you disagree, then post the evidence. Not a cite-free op-ed, but something resembling evidence.

The second, precise and imaginary: we are to accept without question the cite-free assertion that counterterrorist forces have in some way chosen to linger improperly long over Abdelslam's ultimate arrest. He was allowed to operate without hindrance (false), not behaving like a man on the run (false). This is somehow indicative of...something state power something. We are to unquestioningly accept the idea that the state is therefore privileging itself over its citizens.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:36 AM on March 22, 2016


Brussels bombings thread is here.
posted by progosk at 6:52 AM on March 22, 2016


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