Foued Mohamed-Aggad, one of the three men who carried out the massacre at the Bataclan concert hall during the Paris attacks, was reportedly turned away from the French army and possibly by the police before he was accepted into the ranks of the Islamic State.
Army recruiters in the eastern city of Strasbourg turned Mohamed-Aggad away after he did not pass physical and psychological testing and was determined unsuitable to bear arms as a French soldier, Reuters reported.
“We have filters. We look at personality and do physical and psychological tests. The candidate has to be healthy and viable for the army,” army recruitment spokeswoman Lt. Col. Sophie Caussel told Reuters.
“In this case we identified him as not suitable as a soldier and to bear arms. We decided not to go any further with him.”
Police recruiters would neither confirm nor deny that Mohamed-Aggad had made an application, citing the confidentiality of the ongoing terror investigation.
The attacker’s identity was just revealed this week after it was discovered his mother, Fatima, had received a text message proclaiming her son was a martyr. He had traveled to Syrian in 2013.
Officials have yet to name all the dead gunmen and suicide bombers directly involved in last month’s attacks, for which Islamic State claimed responsibility. It remains unclear when and how Mohamed-Aggad returned to France.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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