Khaled Kelkal

Khaled Kelkal (Arabic: خالد كلكال‎‎) (April 28, 1971 – September 29, 1995) was a French and Algerian terrorist affiliated with the GIA. He was involved in the 1995 terror bombings in France.

Khaled Kelkal was born in 1971 in Mostaganem, Algeria. The family moved to Vaulx-en-Velin, a suburb of Lyon, when he was an infant. He had four sisters and three brothers. While attending La Martinière lycée top of his class in Lyon, he became a juvenile delinquent. His older brother Nouredine was sentenced to 9 years in prison for armed robbery. In 1990, Kelkal was placed on probation for four months for trafficking in stolen cars. A few months later, he was arrested for thefts using cars as battering rams to enter private properties. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

While he was incarcerated, he met "Khelif," an Islamist who had fled France to evade trial. Upon his return to France in 1989 he was sentenced to 7 years in prison. While in jail, Khelif attempted to recruit Algerians to man militant organisations in Algeria. After his release, Kelkal regularly attended the Bilal Mosque in Vaulx-en-Velin; the mosque was headed by imam Mohamed Minta, a sympathiser of the Foi et Pratique ("Faith and practice") fundamentalist organisation. In 1993, Kelkal went to Mostaganem, in Algeria, to visit his family. There, he was probably recruited by one of the radical branches of the GIA, headed by Djamel Zitouni, whose aim was to "punish France."

On 11 July 1995, Kelkal was involved in the assassination of Imam Sahraoui in his mosque in Paris. Sahraoui was considered too moderate by the GIA, and might have attempted to steal money from them. Four days later, in Bron, a suburb of Lyon, Kelkal opened fire on gendarmes at a checkpoint and evaded arrest. On 26 August 1995, during the bombing campaign in France, a gas bottle equipped with a detonation system was found near the Paris-Lyon TGV railway, near Cailloux-Sur-Fontaines (Rhône). The device had not exploded, and was found to be similar to the one which had been set off on 25 July in the Saint-Michel RER station. Fingerprints of Khaled Kelkal were found on the bomb, and a search for him began. His picture was displayed in public places all over France.

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