newshounds and reporters, mostly, of course, looking for sensational stories such as involving celebraties scandalously cavorting amongst the super-rich on Greek and Turkish islands in the Aegean, so let's turn to the BBC source this morning, which is one among a list of explainer items on the front page and by no means a headline: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34832512 (My comments in italics)
'Ahmad al-Mohammad' (False name)
At the scene a Syrian passport was found which bore this name, suggesting the man was a 25-year-old from the Syrian city of Idlib, but authorities believe this
passport was a fake. A report in a Serbian newspaper, Blic, said a passport bearing the same name and data - but a different image - had been found on another migrant, suggesting both men bought fake documents from the same counterfeiter.
The Paris prosecutor's office said fingerprints from the dead attacker matched those of a person who
came to Europe with migrants via the Greek island of Leros. The man may have been posing as a Syrian refugee.
Records from Leros suggested he arrived on 3 October and was fingerprinted and photographed.
(Did this person register as a refugee, as a refugee must do on first arrival in the EU?)
Bilal Hadfi
The French national was residing in Belgium. Belgian prosecutors have said they were aware he had gone to fight with IS in Syria but
did not know he had returned.
(No mention of fingerprints or photographs)
(So, yes, it looks like both these could have entered the EU from Turkey on a regular ferry service amongst people declaring themsleves a refugees on the island of Leros. But it is not clear that they passed themselves off as refugees. Once inside the EU, at least Hadfi could move freely using his EU country passport. But passports would not be likely checked once inside the Schengen area.. Perhaps they used false passports on entry into the EU so as to avoid detection (this is all computerised). For all we know of ·Ahmad al-Mohammad'·, the name on a false passport, he could also be an EU citizen. This is posing as refugees at an underfunded, understaffed (austerity) Greek small-town frontier post, probably without bothering to wait in a queue to complete the formalities. All this, of course, has nothing to do with the genuine cases of genuine refugees from a recently drought-stricken land engaged in a civil war which has now turned into an international UNSC-approved actual kind of Crusade! (Although, and this is significant, without any kind of blessing from the actual Catholic Pope; indeed, far from it). The making of a huge issue of this is entirely, it seems to me, a matter of US domestic politics and reflects a deep national sense of unease, foreboding and existential insecurity, I am very sorry to have to say).
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