A jihadi of Moroccan origin—who had previously received an education grant from the Italian government—recorded four videos calling for the destruction of Italy and lashing out at the Jews before mowing down seven pedestrians with his car in the northern Italian city of Modena on May 16, according to new information from investigators.
Italy must be destroyed.
Salim El Koudri, a 31-year-old graduate in business economics, who called Italians “f*****g Christian bastards” and said he would “burn your Jesus Christ on the cross,” shot three videos in his car and one at his home between May 15 and 16, ranging in length from four to ten minutes.
“Italy must be destroyed,” El Koudri says in one of his videos. He explains his motivation for seeking Italy’s destruction: “We are slaves of the Americans.” He also lashes out against the rich and the Jews. El Koudri is speaking in Italian and English, interspersed with some Arabic.
He makes threats in the videos, stating: “I will kill” and “I am attacking now.” The jihadi also lashes out at his birthplace in the Bergamo area and makes references to the art of war without explaining his reasons. Furthermore, El Koudri posts the videos on Instagram, where he has no followers, and then deletes them from the thread, but they remain on his phone.
Jihadi Searches Internet for Terrorist Information
El Koudri conducted hundreds of searches on the internet and on social media for information on jihadi training, the Charlie Hebdo and Manchester attacks, Islamist terrorism, as well as for the far-left, Marxist-Leninist paramilitary Red Brigades in the weeks and days preceding the attack. He even created the web domain “11.September.2001.”
Police found the videos on his cell phone and sent them to the DIGOS (General Investigations and Special Operations Division) in Bologna for analysis. The Bologna Prosecutor’s Office, which has had the videos since June 8, described El Koudri’s rants as “rabid frenzy.”
The evidence is a major factor for experts to rule out psychiatric illness as a cause of his attack on pedestrians using a Citroën C3, killing 55-year-old Monica Esposito and forcing two women to have their legs amputated.
“El Koudri was doing specific searches online every other day [on] ISIS, Islamic State,” Liborio Cataliotti, the lawyer for Esposito’s family, said. “For an act to be defined as terrorist, it must be aimed at inducing terror” and “destabilizing institutions,” verifying the individual’s awareness.
Assailant’s Mental Illness Theory Collapses
Attorney Deborah De Cicco, representing Giovanni Esposito, one of Monica’s brothers, called for an examination and evaluation of “every detail of the videos” and the jihadi’s online research “by those who study these dynamics and their symbolism.” She said she was not an Islamic expert, so an expert evaluation “is necessary to ensure I don’t miss any crucial details.”
“We’re not talking about a madman,” chef Ermanno Muccini, a victim of the attack, stressed. “The attacker is angry with us, with Italians, and with our Christ because he’s not happy with what he has. Did he want to burn down the university where he studied?” Muccini, who still suffers from injuries to his arms and neck and cannot return to work, asked.
Left-wing politicians and media immediately dismissed an Islamist angle to the attack, insisting that El Koudri had suffered from schizoid mental disorders since 2022. But at a press conference later that evening, the prefect of Modena, Fabrizia Triolo, confirmed that the perpetrator was not under the influence of psychotropic substances, Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) reported.
“Today we discover that in the days leading up to the massacre, El Koudri not only sent emails saying all Christians should be exterminated, but he also made videos declaring that Italy should be destroyed,” Italian parliamentarian Galeazzo Bignami observed.
“There is a bigger problem than those who come here to Islamize our country, and those who, by renouncing our identity and our history, want to let them do so for economic, political, and electoral reasons,” he warned.
Italians Outraged Over Scholarship for Terrorist
Meanwhile, Italians have expressed outrage over the taxpayer funding of €6,585.33 that ER.GO, the Regional Agency for the Right to Higher Education in Emilia-Romagna, gave El Koudri over the three academic years from 2014 to 2017, while he was pursuing a degree in International Economics and Marketing at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.
ER.GO offers students grants ranging from €433 to €7,171 per year, based on family income and student status, as well as subsidized accommodation services and housing assistance across Emilia-Romagna, subsidized meal vouchers, and access to university canteens.
“We are asking the [Emilia-Romagna] regional authorities to conduct a thorough review of the criteria and procedures used to allocate public resources,” Senator Michele Barcaiuolo, regional coordinator of the Fratelli d’Italia political party in Emilia-Romagna, said.
“El Koudri’s modus operandi bears all the hallmarks of a deliberate attack, certainly not the impulsive act of a madman,” Giovanni Giacalone, a terrorism expert at the International Team for the Study of Security Verona, told FWI. “He drove his car from his home to a central pedestrian area on a Saturday afternoon—a time of peak foot traffic. He zigzagged, attempting to crush pedestrians against the sides of the street, before crashing the car and stepping out armed with a knife.”
“He also stated his intention to shave his beard as a means of purification before the act—a classic ritual of Islamist terrorism. Moreover, he also looked for information on previous ISIS-style attacks,” Giacalone emphasized. “It was indeed Italy’s first car-ramming attack perpetrated by an Islamist terrorist.”
Giacalone noted that it would be complex to deport El Koudri because he holds Italian citizenship, but Italy needed to consider legislation to revoke citizenship in cases of terrorism.
“Let’s debunk the Left’s nonsense: in Modena, we need to talk about a genuine Islamic attack, not a madman with mental health issues. The truth is plain for all to see,” Isabella Tovaglieri, Italian Member of the European Parliament, tweeted.
