French journalist infiltrates jihadist cell for 6 months

A French journalist infiltrated a cell of would-be jihadists, filming them with a hidden camera as they plotted an attack in the name of ISIS, before they were arrested, he said.

The journalist, a Muslim using the pseudonym Said Ramzi, carried out the investigation for a documentary entitled Allah’s Soldiers which gives an insight into the minds of young jihadists.

Ramzi describes himself as a Muslim “of the same generation as the killers” who carried out the Nove-mber 13 terror attacks in Paris. “My goal was to understand what was goi-ng on inside their heads,” he said. “One of the main lessons was that I never saw any Islam in this affair. No will to improve the world. Only lost, frustrated, suicidal, easily manipulated youths.”

To make contact with the group, Ramzi said the first steps were easy, following and interacting with those preaching jihad on Facebook. Then, he had to meet the person presented as the “emir” of the group of about a dozen youths, some of them born into Muslim families, and the others converts.

The “emir” was a young French-Turkish citizen named Oussama, and on their first meeting he tries to convince the journalist he knows as Abu Hamza, that paradise awaits him if he carries out a suicide mission.

Some of the gang, like Oussama, try and reach ISIS in Syria. He was held by the Turkish police and handed back to France where was jailed for five months before being relea-sed. While he had to show his face at the local police station once a day, he stayed in touch with the group via encrypted messaging application Telegr-am to organise meetings at which plans to launch an attack took form.

“We must hit a military base,” says Oussama. “When they are eating, they are all lined up,” he says. “Or journalists... they are at war against Islam,” he says. “Like they did to Charlie.”

Things accelerate when a certain Abu Suleiman returns from Raqqa and tells the journalist to meet him at a train station. On-ce there, a woman in a full-faced naqab veil who sho-ws up and hands Ramzi a letter. The message lays out a plan of attack. However, the security noose tightens around the group at this point, and several members of the group are held. One of them who avoided arrest sends a message to the journalist saying: “You’re done for man”. “That is where my infiltration ended,” said Ramzi.