French Islamist captured ‘after fighting’ in Mali

A French Islamic convert who threatened his home country has been captured in northern Mali, allegedly after fighting on the militants’ side. French troops captured Gilles Le Guen, who now goes by the name Abdel Jelil, on Sunday night north of Timbuktu, the army said. Mr Le Guen, 58, is believed to have been living…

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Annual French Muslim event adjusts its speaker list

28.03.2013 Union of French Islamic Organisation Following a controversy, this year’s conference by the Union of French Islamic Organisations in Bourget (Seine St-Denis) refrained from inviting the Egyptian celebrity preacher Yousself al-Qaradawi who is closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The appeasement politics played by the organizers follows last year’s French Presidential election campaign during…

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French Islamic school teaches imams

News Agencies – November 6, 2012 Deep in the wooded hills of Burgundy in central France, an unusual institute is training unusual students: aspiring French imams who hope to minister to the country’s large Muslim population. After seven intensive years of study, only 10 or so graduates each year to lead prayers or preach at…

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Suspect killed in shootout during arrest of suspected jihadist cell in France

News Agencies – October 6, 2012   Police carried out raids across France on Saturday after DNA on a grenade that exploded last month at a kosher grocery store led them to a suspected jihadist cell of young Frenchmen recently converted to Islam. The man whose DNA was identified, named by police as Jeremy Sydney,…

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US report criticises French Islamic veil ban

News Agencies – August 1, 2012   The US on Monday criticised France and Belgium for banning women from wearing face-covering Islamic veils in public, while warning of growing anti-Semitism and hostility towards Muslims in Europe. The US State Department’s report on religious freedoms, researched in 2011 but released on July 30, 2012, warned that…

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