- Joined
- Apr 18, 2013
- Messages
- 94,108
- Reaction score
- 82,336
- Location
- Barsoom
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
New ISIS recruits have deep criminal roots
The perfect storm of radicalism and criminality.
One perpetrator was an automobile thief before he got religion, and served time in a Belgian prison on a carjacking charge. Another was an armed robber who once shot a police officer while fleeing from a crime scene. Others had convictions for burglary, drug-dealing, larceny and assault. Nearly to a person, all had been violent men, long before they became foot soldiers for the hyper-violent Islamic State.
As Belgian police delve into the backgrounds of the men behind Tuesday’s attacks in Brussels, they are encountering a pattern familiar to investigators in Paris and other European cities targeted by the Islamic State: The shock troops used in the terrorist group’s signature attacks are largely men already well known to local law enforcement — not as religious radicals, but as criminals....
The perfect storm of radicalism and criminality.