French counter-terrorist police on Tuesday raided a Muslim centre with close ties to the Iranian regime and recovered weapons in an operation prompted by suspicions over its leadership’s links to terrorist organisations.
Authorities froze the assets of the Zahra centre in the northern coastal city of Dunkirk, three other organisations and four of its officials, including a prominent Shiite leader who has met with senior members of the Iranian government. Eleven people were arrested in the early morning police operation.
French interior minister Gerard Collomb said that three of those detained were arrested for possession of illegal weapons, but did not clarify what was found. He said a prayer room at the centre was being closed.
The raid of the centre and a dozen homes came on the day that the French authorities increased the pressure on Tehran with a series further financial sanctions against key figures linked to a failed bomb plot on an opposition rally near France on June 30.
Authorities said that the centre’s leaders “pronounced support for several terrorist organisations and in favour of movements advocating ideas contrary to the values of the republic”.
Zahra head Yahia Gouasmi has been photographed with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president, and the centre has long been in the cross-hairs of the French security forces. It was previously raided in 2009.
Mr Gouasmi told French television that the weapons found during the raid on Tuesday were for the security of the centre.
Mr Gouasmi, 68, an Algerian, was also well-known to the authorities and was arrested in the city in 1984, on suspicion of plotting the assassination of anti-regime backers in France and smuggling arms between France and Belgium, according to media reports.
He has also been linked to a British police operation after the discovery of a plot to kill the Iranian exile poet and newspaper publisher, Hadi Khorsandi, in the mid-1980s.
Mr Khorsandi, who still lives in Britain, told the National that he was told to move out of London to a safe house because of an apparent threat to his life after one of his poems that enraged the clerical leadership. The suspected team of assassins was arrested by police and deported, according to Mr Khorsandi.
“Five people were walking around the street when I was taking my children to school,” he said. “The plan was to kill.”
_______________
Read more:
France says Iranian state behind foiled bomb plot
The real forces behind Lebanon’s travails
_______________
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah refers to the Zahra centre in France as being the creation of one of the party’s “students”, according to French media reports.
The centre's website describes the goal of the association as "to make known the message of Islam through the regard of the Prophet and his family."
The centre also makes no secret of having created the Anti-Zionist Party, a political organisation that aims to counter what it says is Zionist lobbying in France.
Mr Gouasmi has shared a platform with the firebrand French comedian Dieudonne, who has a history of anti-Semitic comments. The comedian was given a suspended jail term for glorifying terrorism following the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks.
The Zahra centre denied that it had anything to do with terrorism, saying that it always acted with “full transparency,” according to a statement published on the website of the Anti-Zionist party. "Everything is false," said Jamel Tahiri, 43, one of the four men whose funds were being frozen. "We're transparent. Everything is on internet."
Political commentator Potkin Azarmehr said: “For France, this is another reminder that it cannot allow these centres to go unchecked just because they claim to be religious set-ups. The same should apply to other European states.”
The BIO
Favourite piece of music: Verdi’s Requiem. It’s awe-inspiring.
Biggest inspiration: My father, as I grew up in a house where music was constantly played on a wind-up gramophone. I had amazing music teachers in primary and secondary school who inspired me to take my music further. They encouraged me to take up music as a profession and I follow in their footsteps, encouraging others to do the same.
Favourite book: Ian McEwan’s Atonement – the ending alone knocked me for six.
Favourite holiday destination: Italy - music and opera is so much part of the life there. I love it.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Anxiety and work stress major factors
Anxiety, work stress and social isolation are all factors in the recogised rise in mental health problems.
A study UAE Ministry of Health researchers published in the summer also cited struggles with weight and illnesses as major contributors.
Its authors analysed a dozen separate UAE studies between 2007 and 2017. Prevalence was often higher in university students, women and in people on low incomes.
One showed 28 per cent of female students at a Dubai university reported symptoms linked to depression. Another in Al Ain found 22.2 per cent of students had depressive symptoms - five times the global average.
It said the country has made strides to address mental health problems but said: “Our review highlights the overall prevalence of depressive symptoms and depression, which may long have been overlooked."
Prof Samir Al Adawi, of the department of behavioural medicine at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, who was not involved in the study but is a recognised expert in the Gulf, said how mental health is discussed varies significantly between cultures and nationalities.
“The problem we have in the Gulf is the cross-cultural differences and how people articulate emotional distress," said Prof Al Adawi.
“Someone will say that I have physical complaints rather than emotional complaints. This is the major problem with any discussion around depression."
Daniel Bardsley
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
More on Quran memorisation:
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Neo%20Mobility%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20February%202023%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECo-founders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Abhishek%20Shah%20and%20Anish%20Garg%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Logistics%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%2410%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Delta%20Corp%2C%20Pyse%20Sustainability%20Fund%2C%20angel%20investors%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
Engine: 5.0-litre V8
Power: 480hp at 7,250rpm
Torque: 566Nm at 4,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: L/100km
Price: Dh306,495
On sale: now
