DAR AL HARB - FRANCE: A MOSLEM CONVERTS JOURNEY TO WAGING JIHAD IN IRAQ

Thomas-Abdelhakim, a jihadist's path
By Georges Malbrunot

Initial indoctrination in Southwest France and radicalization at Medina University, before the operational "great leap" to Iraq. The path pursued by Thomas Barnouin, arrested in Syria at the end of 2006, is typical of the French jihadist.

Thomas Barnouin, 26, whose parents are both teachers, joined Medina University in Saudi Arabia in 2003. "To interpret the Koran for himself," according to his mother, Anne-Marie. Following his conversion to Islam four years earlier the young man had been called Abdelhakim. He let his beard grow, but still called his parents, 5,000 km away in Albi, every fortnight. "Our son never spoke to us about his wish to wage the jihad in Iraq," his mother said, refusing to consider Thomas "a dangerous terrorist." But in the holy city of Medina, inaccessible to non-Muslims, the student "gradually met with people" who "opened his eyes to what is happening in Iraq," he told French police following his arrest 12 February on his return from Syria. "What the Americans are doing in Iraq is serious," Barnouin said, "and it is my duty as a Muslim to go and combat them there."

In Medina at the end of 2006 "Thomas Abdelhakim" made contact with Abou Hassi, a Saudi "fixer" who told him that someone would help him cross the border with Jordan secretly. Several hundred Saudi jihadists before him have already gone to Iraq. There are established networks. Barnouin would take advantage of them. In the Hashimite kingdom another intermediary took him as far as the "Three Borders" area, a paradise for smugglers in the Northeast of the country, from whence he entered Syria. Barnouin was lucky. He left Medina just before a dragnet by the Saudi security services. But he left tracks behind him. The Saudis recorded telephone conversations with two friends from Toulouse, with whom he arranged to meet in Syria. During his three years in Medina Barnouin also stayed in contact with the other members of the Toulouse ring, dismantled by French police in February. Of the eight men indicted, the brains of the group, cheikh Olivier Qorel, 60, is a French national of Syrian origins, living in Artigat, a village in the Ariege area. It was he who persuaded Sabri Essid, a friend of Barnouin's, to join the latter in Syria, via Bulgaria and Turkey. "You will meet your girlfriend again in paradise, but before then sell your car and settle your debts," Qorel told him.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Thomas-Abdelhakim, a jihadist's path