Kassogue S., the 32-year-old Malian who committed the knife attack in which three people were injured at the Gare de Lyon in Paris, entered Italy on 22 August 2016 from Pozzallo and was regularly in France. His case – which the French authorities have specified is not currently being investigated as terrorism – is yet another in a series of cases of attackers in Europe with Italian 'pasts'.
Abdesalem Lassoued
The latest one dates back to 16 October 2023: Abdesalem Lassoued, a 45-year-old Tunisian responsible for an attack in the center of Brussels in which two Swedes were killed, had passed through Genoa and Bologna. His past in Italy links him to some of the Islamic extremists, 'lone wolves' as investigators have defined them, who in recent years have brought terror to Europe, bloodying the cities of Germany, Belgium and France. From Aprilia to Naples to Lampedusa, these terrorists lived in our country for some time, in some cases facilitated by a network of contacts, and then struck hundreds of kilometers across the border.
Lakhdar Benrabah
Even before Lassoued, the last terrorist with known links to Italy was Lakhdar Benrabah, the attacker who attacked three policemen with a knife in front of the Cannes police station on 8 November 2021. The man had landed in Cagliari in 2008 and had held an Italian residence permit issued by the Naples police headquarters since 2018. According to the French media, he had entered the country legally in 2016 and was unknown to the police: he was not followed because he was suspected of radicalisation, not classified as 'S' and therefore not considered a risk to state security.
Brahim Aoussaoui
About thirty kilometers from Cannes, in Nice, on 29 October 2020 three people were killed in a knife attack in the Notre-Dame basilica. A woman was beheaded and the sacristan slaughtered. The one who took action was Brahim Aoussaoui, a Tunisian in his early twenties who on 20 September of that same year had landed in Lampedusa with a few dozen compatriots.
After a brief passage in the island's hotspot, the young Tunisian was transferred to the quarantine ship 'Rhapsody' where he remained until 8 October. The following day he was transferred to a migrant center in Bari, from which, after receiving the deportation order, he clandestinely reached France.
Anis Amri
Also on Lampedusa in 2011, Anis Amri landed, the Tunisian killer who five years later committed a massacre in Berlin by throwing his van into the crowd walking through the streets of the Christmas market on 19 December 2016, killing 12 people, including the Italian Fabrizia Di Lorenzo. After his arrest for aggravated threats, personal injury and arson, he ended up in Enna from Ucciardone prison and stayed in Aprilia. Hence the trip to Germany, with an expulsion decree in his pocket. In the hours following the massacre, the terrorist arrived in Turin and then moved towards Milan. On 22 December 2016 he was killed in a firefight with two policemen near the Sesto San Giovanni station.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel
Same year, but in France, on 14 July Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, driving a truck, drove at full speed into the crowd near the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, killing 89 people, including six Italians. The man regularly came to Italy to bring food to Syrian migrants, at least according to what one of his alleged accomplices told investigators. Bouhlel himself, just under a year after the massacre on the seafront in Nice, was checked at the Ventimiglia border, identified and allowed to pass as there was no element on him that would make him considered a dangerous person.
Khaled Babouri
Instead, Khaled Babouri landed in Sardinia from Algeria, the attacker who on 6 August 2016 attacked two policewomen with machetes near the police station in Charleroi, Belgium, shouting “Allah hu Akbar”. The attack was claimed the following day by ISIS through its propaganda organ Amaq.
Ahmed Hanachi
Ahmed Hanachi, the Tunisian who stabbed two girls to death at the Saint-Charles station in Marseille on October 1, 2017, also had ties to Italy. Hanachi, married to an Italian, spent some time in Aprilia (Latina), where he lived at his in-laws' house. The two then broke up and the man abandoned Aprila and Italy. A few days later the police arrested Hanachi's brother in Ferrara.
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