French authorities announced Dec. 2 that they shut down three radicalized mosques, reports USA Today.
After the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris the government proclaimed a state of emergency, which grants it wide latitude to conduct searches, make arrests, and ban public gatherings.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazaneuve defended such tough measures, saying, "It is the terrorism that is the threat to freedom, not the state of emergency."
…The Interior minister said French authorities have conducted 2,235 searches, made 263 arrests, and seized 334 weapons, including 34 military-grade weapons, since last month's attacks on several bars and restaurants, a concert hall, and the national stadium in Paris.
[Evan] Kohlmann [a threat analyst] said radicalization has not been the trend in U.S. mosques, even where they've had extremist clerics, such as Anwar al-Awlaki, who preached in Falls Church, Va., from 2001 to 2002. Awlaki later moved to his parents' homeland in Yemen, where he became a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He was killed in 2010 in a U.S. drone strike.
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