Several jihadists members of the Islamist group HTS, which overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, 2024, were in contact with the attacker of Samuel Paty before he killed the professor in Yvelines in 2020.
Former member of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has been repeating for years that he has turned away from global jihad, as reported by journalist Wassim Nasr on RFIand yet the Syrian Islamist group is no stranger to jihadist actions. It is even linked to an attack which deeply shocked France: the assassination of Samuel Paty in October 2020. The leader of the Islamist group Ahmed al-Chareh, also known by his nom de guerre Abou Mohammad al-Joulani, is not not personally involved in the terrorist attack which affected the teacher of a colleague from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in Yvelines. But Samuel Paty’s assailant, Abdoullakh Anzorov, was in contact with members of the HTS group as reported The Parisian.
The young terrorist who was 18 years old – he was shot dead by the police after the assassination of Samuel Paty – was fascinated by the Islamist group created in Syria in 2012 (first under the name Front al -Nosra. The investigation carried out on the assailant revealed a video posted by the assailant on the social network Snapchat only 12 days before the assassination of the teacher and in which he said: “There is no no doubt that what is happening in Idlib is the real jihad where Allah chooses the shuhada (martyrs, editor’s note) from among his servants, and the best current group to join is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.”
Propaganda and encouragement of a member of the HTS
More than praising the HTS cause, Abdoullakh Anzorov was in contact with one of the members of the group via Instagram. He had also informed this person, responding to the nickname “Dnevnik_71”, of his terrorist act by sending a photo of the decapitated head of Samuel Paty, a screenshot of the claim for the attack and an audio message summarizing to a sentence: “I beheaded the teacher, now I’m going to wage jihad in France.” A message sent only a few minutes after the events clarified the Ile-de-France newspaper.
On the other side of the screen was a man: Faruq Shami. He is a jihadist from Tajikistan who posed as an independent reporter covering the activity of jihadist groups in Syria, but who, according to a report from the police of the anti-terrorist sub-directorate (Sdat), played a role “in the media jihad and propaganda of HTS”. Data shared by the American FBI with French police confirmed the presence of Faruq Shami in Idlib, a HTS stronghold in northwest Syria. Via the account of “Dnevnik_71” and others, Faruq Shami came into contact with several radicalized young people including the attacker of Samuel Paty. The jihadist also responded to Abdoullakh Anzorov’s last message: “Allah Akbar! May the peace, mercy and blessing of Allah be upon you.” The HTS member was for a time considered to be the possible sponsor of the professor’s assassination before being passed on to the role of advisor or inspiration for the 18-year-old terrorist.
HTS had firmly denied any involvement in the assassination of Samuel Paty and had made this known to the journalist Wassim Nasr : “We live in an open world, everyone can contact everyone, we do not know the Chechen student and his act is the responsibility of the French president who provoked and accused Islam in a majority of his speeches . This [que l’étudiant] did is the result of what is happening in France and not in Idlib.”
Questions about jihad and martyrdom
Samuel Paty’s assassin was also in contact with a second HTS member, a sniper who used the name of a model of Soviet heavy machine gun as his nickname: “12.7X108”. According to information from the FBI, Abdoullakh Anzorov had inquired with the fighter about death as a martyr according to religious texts only a month before the attack. He also questioned the jihadist about the difficulty of “crossing the Turkish-Syrian border”, specifying his desire to “do hijra (emigration, editor’s note) in the path of Allah (and to) fight”. A few weeks later, the Chechen terrorist finally revised his plans to wage jihad in France, starting by killing Samuel Paty.