APPREHENDED
- Full name: Clément Baur
- Pseudonym: N/a
- Alternatives: N/a
- Location: France, fmr Germany
- Affiliation: Buar and Merabet Cell [BMC], Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh]
Clément Baur (°1993) is a Frenchman from the Val-d’Oise department who grew up in the southern French city of Nice. As a teenager, he hung out with Chechens and converted to Islam in 2007.1 Baur learned Russian and began to pretend that he came from the Caucasus. He applied for asylum in Belgium while acting as a Dagestani refugee.2 Baur spent the next years in the Belgian cities of Liège and Verviers where he associated with Chechen Islamist radicals.3 Baur got acquainted with Magomed Chamagov, but also developed ties to people affiliated with the Verviers branch of the Khalid Zerkani Network [KZN].4 At one point, he also got to know Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the KZN operative who would go on to serve as an attack coordinator for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham]. In late 2014, Baur broke off contact with his family and told his mother he was going to Syria.5
In January 2015, Baur was arrested in France and subsequently tried for having used an assumed identity.6 He successfully posed as a Chechen during his trial. Baur spent several weeks behind bars and got acquainted with imprisoned drug dealer Mahiedine Merabet.7 The two men struck up a friendship and Baur introduced his cell mate to austere Salafism. Upon his release from prison in March 2015, he went to Germany and settled in Berlin with his associate Chamagov.8 His family reported him missing and feared that Baur had actually joined the jihadis in Syria.9 In the German capital city, he attended a Salafi mosque in the Moabit neighborhood and got to know Anis Amri.10 Baur, Chamagov and Amri are suspected of having planned to launch attacks together.11 They supposedly settled on attacking a shopping center in Berlin’s Gesundbrunnen neighborhood.12 Baur and Chamagov acquired explosives in October 2016. Baur went on to test a bomb in Saxony.13 Later that month, he returned to France and abandoned the plot following a visit by police to the apartment of Chamagov.14 It is unclear whether Amri was still involved in the attack preparations at that point. The Tunisian would later kill twelve people when he plowed a hijacked truck through a Berlin Christmas Market in December 2016.
Baur was given shelter by Merabet in Roubaix for some time until he was again forced to flee after police searched his companion’s house in early December 2016.15 Baur and Merabat reconnected in Nancy in March 2017.16 The duo committed themselves to launching attacks in France. Baur and his associate traveled to Marseille where they wanted to target a rally of nationalist presidential election candidate Marine Le Pen, polling stations and bars frequented by Americans, Israelis and Russians.17 The men had already acquired explosives, several firearms and ammunition from acquaintances.18 Baur and Merabet pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham] in a video statement.19 Their message was intercepted by intelligence services as they tried to send it to the DaIISh. Baur and his companion were arrested by police at their hideout in Marseille on Apr. 18, 2017.20 Their arsenal was also seized during the raid.
References