PARIS — In the cottage industry of international terrorism experts that has developed since the Sept. 11 attacks, Farhad Khosrokhavar stands out.
The Iranian French professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes de Sciences Sociales here has explored the underworld of Islamic extremism through rare access to impeccable sources: the militants themselves. He has conducted in-depth interviews in French prisons with 15 inmates convicted of terrorism-related offenses such as the assassination by Al Qaeda agents of an anti-Taliban leader in Afghanistan and a plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
Inmates often were hostile at first. Some accused him of being a government spy. But the wry 59-year-old won them over with the persistence of a good listener. It didn't hurt that he is a Shiite Muslim who speaks Arabic.
His case studies have proved particularly relevant as the French government leads a Europe-wide push to fight radicalization in Muslim inmate populations. Recently, the French Interior Ministry prepared a handbook to help prison staff and others in law enforcement detect extremist activity behind bars.
Khosrokhavar, whose books include "Inside Jihadism," to be published in English this month, recently sat down for an interview in his office.
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Why do you have mixed feelings about the French crackdown on prison radicalization?
It's the first time the government recognizes this problem so publicly. They are trying to identify jihadists. But I think they are making a mistake in mixing up fundamentalists and jihadists. We should try to push for a separation. What the government is proposing could be pushing them toward unification, if the idea becomes that an inmate with a long beard and a djellaba is dangerous. Often, fundamentalism contains them, it satisfies them and they do not go further, only a small percentage become violent.
The government is partly to blame for prison conditions that anger Muslim inmates. But could the outside Muslim community do more?
It is a pitiful situation. There are only 117 imams, or Muslim chaplains, for a prison population that is half Muslim: more than 30,000 Muslim inmates in France. In contrast, there are 600 Christian and Jewish chaplains. The knowledge of Islam among many inmates is less than rudimentary and that helps radicalize them. We have to fill this gap.
