Attack on Cannes: from Italy with terror, ‘lone wolves’ and ties with our country

Lakhdar, Anis, Brahim. They are some of the Islamic extremists, ‘lone wolves’ as the investigators, who in recent years have brought terror to Europe by bloodied the cities of Germany, Belgium and France. All with a common denominator. A disturbing past in Italy. From Aprilia to Naples to Lampedusa, these terrorists lived for some time in our country, in some cases facilitated by a network of contacts, and then hit hundreds of kilometers across the border. The latest with ties to Italy is the bomber who this morning attacked three policemen with a knife in front of the Cannes police station, before being ‘neutralized’ and seriously injured. According to Adnkronos, the attacker is called Lakhdar Benrabah, he had landed in Cagliari in 2008 and since 2018 was the holder of an Italian residence permit issued by the Naples police headquarters. 2016 and was unknown to law enforcement: it was not followed because suspected of radicalization, not registered ‘S’ and therefore not considered a risk to the security of the state. 30 kilometers from Cannes, 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 was slaughtered. Brahim Aoussaoui, a Tunisian in his early twenties who landed in Lampedusa with a few dozen of his compatriots on September 20 of that same year, went into action. After a brief visit to the island’s hotspot, the young Tunisian was transferred to the quarantine ship ‘ Rhapsody ‘where he remained until 8 October. The next day he was transferred to a center for migrants in Bari, from which, after receiving the travel document, he went clandestine to France.Also in Lampedusa was landed in 2011 by Anis Amri, the Tunisian killer who five years later massacre in Berlin by throwing his van on the crowd that strolled through the streets of the Christmas market. After being arrested for aggravated threat, personal injury and arson, he ended up in Enna from the 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 to Milan. On 22 December 2016 he was killed in a fire fight with two policemen near the Sesto San Giovanni station. Same year, but in France, on 14 July Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel driving a truck rushed at full speed into the crowd in the 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 was reported to investigators by one of his alleged accomplices. Bouhlel himself, a little less than a year after the massacre on the Nice seafront, was checked at the border of Ventimiglia, identified and made to pass because there was no element on him that made him consider a dangerous subject. from Algeria, on the other hand, Khaled Babouri, the bomber who on 6 August 2016 attacked two policewomen near the police station with machetes, shouting “Allah hu akbar”, as the then deputy Mauro denounced. Pili. The attack was claimed the next day by Isis through its propaganda organ Amaq. Ahmed Hanachi also had ties with Italy, the Tunisian who on 1 October 2017 stabbed two girls to death at the Saint-Charles station in Marseille . Hanachi, married to an Italian, spent a period in Aprilia (Latina), where he lived at the home of his in-laws. The two then broke up and the man left Aprila and Italy. A few days later the police arrested Hanachi’s brother in Ferrara.