Passport Found in Paris Attacks

When I expressed my incredulity by noting an intact Syrian passport was "conveniently" found near the body of a suicide bomber, I knew that it would earn me some snickering remarks from my friends.

And it did.

But anybody who ever read a Barry Eisler novel knows that, when operational, trained assassins are supposed to be "clean" meaning no keys, no ID, no identifiable items on their person. This guy had his passport with him and the blast that killed him did nothing to the document.

This is the passport. It belongs to a man named Ahmad al-Mohammad.

Here is where it gets interesting.

Serbian police have arrested a man carrying a Syrian passport with the same details as one found near the body of one of the Paris suicide bombers, police sources told the Guardian. 

The passport bears the same name and details – but a different photograph – as the document found near one of the men who attacked the Stade de France.

According to the Guardian, one of the few papers to report this incongruity, the finding suggests "that several may be in circulation, and throwing doubt on whether one of the attackers had indeed used the Balkan refugee route."

The terrorist who blew himself up at Gate D was supposed to be al-Mohammad but his fingerprints did not match the ones in the Greek registry. Instead the prints of the suicide bomber at Gate H were a match.

In other words, the passport was found next to the wrong guy.

Curiouser and curiouser, cried Alice.

Especially when you consider that this passport could bring an end to the Schengen area and could herald electoral successes of anti-EU and anti-immigration parties like National Front.