“Violent action” project, link with the Islamic State, entourage… the worrying profile of the young Afghan arrested in Occitanie

A 22-year-old Afghan, who has embraced the ideology of the Islamic State according to the anti-terrorist prosecutor's office, was indicted Saturday in Paris and then imprisoned, suspected of having "fomented" a "plan for violent action" in a football stadium or a shopping center.

His arrest, which took place Tuesday in Haute-Garonne, has "links” with the arrest of an Afghan living in the United States charged Wednesday with planning an attack on the day of the American elections in November, according to the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (Pnat), confirming a source close to the case interviewed by AFP.

According to a source close to the case, the two men are brothers, which the Pnat has not confirmed. This 27-year-old Afghan, living in Oklahoma (south), was in contact on the Telegram messaging service with a person identified by the FBI as an IS recruiter, according to American judicial authorities.

According to the source close to the case, during their investigations, the American authorities transmitted information to the French authorities, triggering the opening of an investigation in Paris and leading to three arrests.

On Tuesday morning, three men, aged 20 to 31, were arrested in Toulouse and Fronton by investigators from the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), supported by the RAID, a police intervention unit, as part of a preliminary investigation opened on September 27 for “terrorist criminal association with a view to preparing one or more crimes against people".

"The investigations carried out have highlighted the existence of a plan for violent action targeting people in a football stadium or a shopping centre fomented by one of them, aged 22, of Afghan nationality and holder of a resident card, several elements of which also establish radicalisation and adherence to the ideology of the “Islamic State”, the Pnat told AFP on Saturday.

His lawyer, Me Emanuel de Dinechin, did not wish to comment at this stage. In accordance with the Pnat's requisitions, he was indicted for terrorist criminal association by an investigating judge, then placed in provisional detention by a judge of liberties and detention, assisted by an interpreter, and who ruled in camera.

The public prosecutor requested that the hearing not be public, “to preserve his presumption of innocence" and to allow "a peaceful start to the investigations".

According to a source close to the case, this young man is a mechanic, comes from the Tajik community in Afghanistan, his parents are deceased, and his project, which he allegedly discussed on Telegram, remained rather vague and not very successful.

According to another source close to the investigation, he has been living in France for about three years. The other two men, one of whom is his brother, were released after their police custody.

"Reconfiguration" of ISIS

The last arrests for a plan for violent action in France date back to the end of July.

Two young men, aged 18 and originally from Gironde, were indicted on 27 July, suspected of having created a group on social networks “intended to recruit” people “motivated (to) perpetrate a violent action” during the Olympic Games.

In total, three attacks were foiled during the Olympic period, according to the authorities. In addition to the two young people from Gironde, one of the plans targeted establishments, including bars, around the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in Saint-Etienne, and the other came from a group that had planned attacks against institutions and representatives of Israel in Paris. Five people have been indicted, including a minor teenager, in these cases.

The “jihadist threat represents 80% of the procedures” initiated by the Pnat, anti-terrorism prosecutor Olivier Christen recalled in mid-September. “In the first half of 2024, there were approximately three times as many procedures” of this type than over the same period in 2023, he added.

This increase is explained according to him by the "geopolitical context", but also by "the reconfiguration, particularly in Afghanistan" of the Islamic State group.

In September, two attacks by the Islamic State group in Khorasan (IS-K), the regional branch of IS in Afghanistan, killed around twenty people in this country. The deadliest attack by ISIS-K left 145 dead in March in a concert hall in Moscow.