LThe video is embarrassingly grandiloquent and stupid. The superhero Iron Man, children with angel wings, a Bedouin horseman with his rifle, El Hussein Khenfri himself in military uniform, then a lion draped in the colors of Palestine holding in its mouth a rat wrapped in an Israeli flag parade on the screen…
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In the background, a rough rap: “Your Israeli army does not scare us, our dream is to give you the lesson of your life and to put an end to your State.” […]we are waiting for the small mistake on your part, you will see what it is worth, an Algerian warrior… »
El Hussein Khenfri posted it on his TikTok page on December 28, 2023, for his 157 subscribers. The attacker of the Beth-Yaacov synagogue in La Grande-Motte (Hérault), Saturday, August 24, does not appear to have actively campaigned in any structure.
His Facebook and Twitter accounts have already been closed. His TikTok account does not link to the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) committees in Nîmes (Gard) and Montpellier (Hérault). However, he seemed to have been concerned about Palestine for several years. In March 2021, he already posted a photo of the Algerian and Palestinian flags intertwined.
The Algerian war of liberation returns in another video relayed on his page at the end of 2023, to the glory of the FLN fighters. Clearly, he adhered to the judgment of the Insoumise Rima Hassan: “What Israel is doing to Palestine is not very different from what France was doing to Algeria.”
Aged 33, this Algerian with a residence permit had a daughter and friends. He filmed himself with them during fishing trips off the coast of Marseille and Cassis. His TikTok account was called “jaipasquesaafaire”, but, in reality, he seemed idle. A large majority of his contacts on TikTok live in Algeria.
Squatter in Pissevin
In France, El Hussein Khenfri lived in the working-class neighborhood of Pissevin, in Nîmes. More precisely, at the top of a tower of the Wagner gallery, known for its very lucrative drug dealing point. The prices of the drugs were tagged in the lobby of this “oven” located at the back of a dilapidated shopping mall. A lobby permanently guarded by a “chouf” slumped on a chair, as we were able to see last summer in a report for The Point.
On the esplanade at the foot of El Hussein Khenfri’s home, a news item had hit the headlines almost a year ago to the day: the death of a 10-year-old child, Fayed, killed with a Kalashnikov by drug dealers who were wrongly targeting a suspicious car.
Since then, the State has deployed major means to restore a semblance of social peace: first by arresting the presumed perpetrators of Fayed’s murder, then by carrying out a vast operation to arrest drug dealers, by planning the demolition of the Wagner gallery, and finally by opening a police station at the foot of the neighborhood.
This police station was supposed to be inaugurated this week. But the building was blown up by a mysterious explosion on August 21st… before, on the 24th, the RAID intervened amidst the din of bullets to arrest El Hussein Khenfri. Peace is therefore not yet completely achieved.
Lightning attack
El Hussein Khenfri, for his part, was known to the police for drug-related offences, but was not a dealer. “His criminal background is not very telling,” says a local police source. He was also not known for his radicalisation. For the inhabitants of the Pissevin neighbourhood, he was a squatter, not a resident.
In a video posted on his TikTok account, El Hussein Khenfri films his living room and then the balcony of his apartment in the Wagner Tower. An apartment in good condition but summarily furnished, equipped with a television. The Algerian frequented, a few years ago, the mosque of the Pissevin esplanade. According to the daily Free Midihe was pushed away by the faithful who were irritated by his “incoherent” speech and his “drug use”…
It was in this apartment in Nîmes that El Hussein Khenfri was wounded in the face and shoulder by the Raid on the evening of Saturday, August 24. He took refuge there after the lightning attack in La Grande-Motte. His operation did not really go as planned. According to the investigators’ initial findings, El Hussein Khenfri, armed with an axe and a revolver, had planned to commit a massacre in the synagogue; after setting fire to his vehicle. He clearly did not intend to leave.
Quick survey
Luckily for the faithful, he made a mistake in the schedule. Prayers begin at 8:30 a.m. on weekdays but at 9 a.m. on Saturdays. His car already on fire, the alarm given, stuck in front of closed doors, he improvised. He doused another car with gasoline, as well as the entrances to the synagogue.
He opened the gas canister of a barbecue that was on site, then, having run out of possibilities to cause harm, he fled on foot. The license plate of his car was easily identified by municipal video surveillance. The assailant also kept his mobile phone on him, which allowed the police to quickly track him down.
READ ALSO After the Solingen attack, the debate on immigration in Germany has been rekindledHis portrait, captured very clearly by video surveillance cameras, also facilitated the investigation. An investigation so rapid that it fueled conspiracy theories, judging the assailant’s appearance too cliché to be true.
This is to underestimate his imprudence and stupidity. The epic of the Algerian vengeful warrior will have lasted fifteen hours, without causing any casualties. This is the good news. The bad news is that El Hussein Khenfri’s profile has nothing in particular that would allow us to detect a threat. Even in retrospect.
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