Malik Faisal Akram, the 'British citizen' attacker of the Texas synagogue, had travelled 11 times to Jhelum, Pakistan, between 2007 and 2020. To see his relatives and family? Not really. According to investigations, in fact, Malik had joined the Tablighi Jamaat and was travelling with other members of the organisation.
News reports, besides the usual comment of “all roads of terrorism lead to Pakistan”, highlight once more the very odd position of European governments towards the organisation. In Brescia, Italy, the so-called ‘cultural centre’ run by the Tabligh Eddawa, the missionary branch of Tablighi Jamaat, has been closely monitored for a couple of years now by the Italian intelligence because of the kind of devotees it welcomed and still welcomes. According to the Italian police, in fact, from the ‘centre’ passed Maulana Tariq Jameel, a member of the Tablighi Jamaat and director of a madrassa in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
And, before his arrest, in April 2015, even Hafiz Muhammad Zulkifal, considered by investigators the “spiritual ideologist” of the massacre at the Peshawar market in 2009 that cost the lives of 137 people, mainly children, as well as being part of an al Qaeda cell based in Sardinia, was an honored guest of the centre.