© REUTERS/Christian HartmannSecurity personnel is seen after an attack on the police headquarters in Paris, France, October 3, 2019.
France is having a 'who watches the watchmen' moment after learning that the suspected radical Islamist who went on a stabbing spree at Paris police HQ had
access to the names of undercover cops investigating domestic jihadists.
Mickaël Harpon, who went on a bloody knife rampage last week, killing three officers and a female administrator before he was shot in the head, worked as an IT specialist at the police headquarters. As the investigation into the man continues, more troubling facts have been revealed which
show a major lapse in security.
His job gave Harpon a top security clearance and
access to computers in a police department tasked with monitoring suspected radical Islamists in France, and he was found to be in possession of sensitive data. When they searched his home, investigators discovered the
personal details of police officers who had infiltrated a number of mosques in Paris frequented by suspected radicals. The information was next to propaganda videos of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), which is worrisome, to say the least.
"It's staggering as well as maddening. How was this person able to get through the net?
This is amateurism that needs to be sorted out," Yves Lefebvre, a police union spokesman, commented on the discovery.
Comment: Mainstream and alternative media both seem to neglect the possibility that Islamists have successfully infiltrated Western organs of power. For the mainstream, it's simply a case of good guys (law enforcement) versus bad guys (terrorists). Any mess-ups are chalked up to coincidence and incompetence. Just one of those things. For alternative media, law enforcement or the intelligence agencies are complicit, directing false flags and jihadist movements, setting up and facilitating all terror attacks. Both are true to a degree, but the picture is even more complex.
There are cops who have no idea the intel agencies and some of their colleagues are actively supporting jihadists for their own agendas. And there are jihadists who have no idea they're being directed to some degree behind the scenes by Western intelligence. And there is no doubt some degree of infiltration of law enforcement by these individuals. It's less a matter of "puppets pulling strings" than it is one of "spy versus spy" - of deviant actors whose motives sometimes align, but who are still at odds with regard to others.
Is there more to the story of this Harpon? Did
he have a handler?
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