(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
There is something in these little reports on the late Chérif Chekatt that is worth noting:
“‘Gangster-jihadist’: The profile of the Strasbourg terrorist is a familiar one”
Did you spot it?
The existence of a category labeled “gangster-jihadists” suggests that these folks aren’t simply the devout children of quietly pious Muslim families who have faithfully attended the local mosque over the years, praying five times daily, fasting from sunrise to sunset during the holy month of Ramadan, studying the Qur’an, and giving alms. Instead, they’re “young men” — they’re almost invariably young males — “often from poor immigrant backgrounds, who start with petty crime, drug dealing and robbery and graduate to terrorism.”
Chérif Chekatt, for example, who shot up the Strasbourg Christmas market on the evening of 11 December 2018, grew up in a housing project on the outskirts of the city, in an area where much of the population is made up of unassimilated North African immigrants — France doesn’t do an especially good job at integrating immigrants into its economy and society — and where the levels of unemployment and poverty are very high. He dropped out of school early and then held a series of dead-end, poorly paid jobs. He fell into petty crime at a young age, and then, fairly soon thereafter, became involved with gangs. By the time he carried out the Strasbourg attack at age 29, he had been convicted fully 27 times for theft and violence, mostly in France but also in Germany and Switzerland. It was during a 2013-2015 prison term that he was radicalized into Islamic extremism. He may also have served a prison sentence in Germany for aggravated robbery until he was expelled to France in 2017.
At the time of the Christmas market attack, Chekatt was already wanted for armed robbery of a bank and he also appears to have been connected to an investigation for attempted homicide. On the Tuesday morning that followed the Strasbourg shootings, French police came to his small apartment, located in a run down housing block in west Strasbourg’s Les Poteries area. (His five presumed accomplices had already been arrested.) But Chérif Chekatt, who had been wounded by police in a firefight near the Christmas market, was not at home.
Does it seem likely that a long-cultivated and prayerful Islamic piety, based on a lifetime of deep study of the Qur’an, was the sole factor in making Chérif Chekatt into a mass murderer? Was it even the most important factor? Was such piety really a factor at all?
(To be continued)
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