One of his best friends noticed the stark changes over the past two years. “He grew a beard and stopped saying hello,” says Radaa Abdullah of Mohammed Larossi, who died as a suicide bomber in a massive attack on Casablanca last Friday that killed 41 people. “When he did [greet you], it was only to talk about Afghanistan and those he called great holy warriors.” Mr. Larossi – like his colleagues in Assirat Al Moustakim, or the Righteous Path – had embraced an austere form of Islam that took law and judgment into its own hands. The devout young men worked on the premise that anyone not following the tenets of Islam should be punished in public – even waiting up at night to catch beer drinkers and womanizers walking home. “Moustikam members would take you into an alley and beat you shouting, ‘Allahu Akhbar [God is great]!” says Said Shuke, who was assaulted himself one night on the way home from the Cafe Noir, a once-jovial establishment near the Thomasville slum. Full Story
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