The Toulouse and Montauban shootings were a
series of three gun attacks targeting French soldiers and Jewish
civilians in the cities of Montauban and Toulouse in the Midi-Pyrénées
region of France in March 2012. In total, seven people were killed,
and five others were injured, four seriously. The perpetrator was shot
and killed after a 30-hour siege with police.
The first attack occurred on 11 March, when a
Muslim French paratrooper was shot dead in Toulouse. A second attack
on 15 March killed two uniformed soldiers and seriously injured
another in a shopping centre in Montauban. On 19 March, four people,
including three children, were killed at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day
school. Thereafter, the Vigipirate, France's terror alert
system, was raised to its highest level in the Midi-Pyrénées region
and surrounding departements. The United Nations, many governments
around the world, and the French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned
the attacks.
The perpetrator was identified as Mohammed Merah, a
23-year-old French-Algerian Islamist terrorist who was previously a
petty criminal. Merah attacked French Army personnel reportedly
because of its involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Merah admitted
antisemitic motivations, and said he attacked the Jewish school
because "The Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine."
Merah was raised in an "atmosphere of racism and
hatred", and French investigators believe that Merah turned to
Salafism in prison and his radicalization increased after two journeys
he made to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some sources have also cited
Merah's familial connections to Al Qaeda and his history of
psychological issues as factors in the shootings. Merah said he was a
mujaheed and claimed ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda,
though this has been denied by French authorities. President Sarkozy
described the attack as isolated. The police investigation suggested
that he was not working alone and had made more than 1,800 calls to
over 180 contacts in 20 different countries, in addition to several
trips to the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Attacks
The shootings were connected and were perpetrated
by Mohammed Merah (see below). The authorities determined that all of
the attacks involved the same weapon, a .45 pistol. In all three
attacks, the helmeted shooter arrived and left on the same stolen
scooter.
11 March: paratrooper in Toulouse
On 11 March, Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten, aged
30, an off-duty paratrooper in the 1st Parachute Logistics Regiment (1er
régiment du train parachutiste) was killed when he was shot
in the head at point-blank range outside a gym in Toulouse. At the
time Ibn-Ziaten was waiting to meet someone who had claimed to be
interested in buying a motorcycle from him; however, it is suspected
that the supposed buyer attacked him instead. The perpetrator was
described as wearing a helmet and riding a motorcycle.
The family of Ibn-Ziaten subsequently buried him in
their hometown of M'diq, Morocco.
11 March: three paratroopers in Montauban
On Thursday, 15 March, at around 14:00, two
uniformed soldiers were killed and a third was seriously injured
outside a shopping centre in Montauban, around 50 km north of
Toulouse, while withdrawing money from a cash machine. They were all
from the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment (17e
régiment du génie parachutiste), whose barracks are close
to the town. Corporal Abel Chennouf, 24, and Private Mohamed Legouad,
23, both of North African origin, were killed. Corporal Loïc Liber,
28, from Guadeloupe, was left in a coma. The security cameras showed
the killer on a powerful moped and wearing a black helmet. The killer
reportedly pushed aside an elderly woman, who was waiting to withdraw
money from the cash machine, while taking aim.
19 March: Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse
The Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse is part of a
national chain of at least twenty Jewish schools throughout France,
educating children of primarily Sephardic, Middle Eastern and North
African descent. The school is a middle and secondary school, with
most children between the ages of 11 to 17. It also serves as a
transportation node for other schools. Many parents bring their
younger children to Ozar Hatorah, and place them on shuttle buses that
travel to the other schools in the area.
At about 8:00 am on 19 March, a man drove up to the
Ozar Hatorah school on a Yamaha TMAX motorcycle. He dismounted, and
immediately opened fire toward the schoolyard. The first victim was a
rabbi and teacher at the school who was shot outside the school gates
as he tried to shield his two young sons from the gunman. The gunman
shot one of the boys as he crawled away, as his father and brother lay
dying on the pavement. He then walked into the schoolyard, chasing
people into the building.
Inside, he shot at staff, parents, and students. He
chased an 8-year-old girl into the courtyard, caught her by her hair
and raised a gun to shoot her. The gun jammed at this point and he
changed weapons from what the police identified as a 9mm pistol to a
.45 calibre gun, and shot the girl in her temple at point-blank range.
The gunman then retrieved his moped and drove off.
Security was increased in the immediate aftermath
of the shooting. Many Jewish institutions were already under
continuous protection, but as a result of the shootings, streets in
France that have Jewish institutions on them were closed to traffic.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as other candidates in the
presidential elections, immediately traveled to Toulouse and to the
school and the election campaign was suspended. Sarkozy called for a
minute of silence in all schools the following day.
On 23 March, Ange Mancini, intelligence adviser to
President Sarkozy, said Merah had actually wanted to kill a soldier,
but arrived too late and instead attacked the nearby Jewish school.
Victims
Four people died: 30-year-old Rabbi Jonathan
(Yonatan) Sandler; his two oldest (out of three) children Aryeh, aged
6, and Gabriel, aged 3; and the head teacher's daughter,
eight-year-old Miriam Monsonego, the girl shot in the head. Bryan
Bijaoui, a 17-year-old Jewish boy, was gravely injured. It was the
worst school-related attack in French history.
The bodies of all four dead were flown to Israel on
20 March, accompanied by French foreign minister Alain Juppé. They
were buried by family members at the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in
Jerusalem. The two deceased children of Sandler were dual
French-Israeli citizens, as are Sandler's widow and surviving child.
Profile of terrorist
Mohammed Merah (Arabic:
محمد مراح; 10 October 1988 – 22
March 2012) was a French and Algerian citizen, born to French parents
of Algerian descent.
Earlier life
Merah was born on 10 October 1988. His parents
divorced when he was five. He was raised, along with his two brothers
and sisters, by his single mother in a "tough part of Toulouse". As a
minor he was described as having "a violent profile from childhood and
behavioural troubles".
During his youth he was arrested numerous times,
mostly for petty crimes such as purse-snatching. He was first arrested
in 2005 and served two short prison terms, the first was 18 months in
2007-8 for aggravated robbery, the second was in 2009. His convictions
reportedly included thefts and driving offences. According to his
friends he never went to the mosque. He was known to French
authorities because he had traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After the shootings, a French intelligence
document, dating back to 2006, was published by French TV station M6,
which presented Merah as a member of the Islamist jihadist movement,
Forsane Alliza, a France organisation with a cluster of followers in
Toulouse, that are suspected of inciting to violence and terrorism.
Merah was described as having the "ability to travel and furnish
logistic assistance to other militants." The document revealed that
Merah was under surveillance since 2006. Forsane Alizza was outlawed
in France for encouraging citizens to travel to Afghanistan to fight
jihad. Police have been investigating whether Merah acted alone in
planning his attacks. The lawyer for the group, speaking after the
shootings, denied claims that the leader of the group had any
connections with Mohammed Merah.
On 25 December 2008, Merah tried to commit suicide
by hanging. A subsequent psychiatric report described Merah as polar
narcissistic noting Merah's slicked back hair and Merah's interest in
personal grooming and designer clothes. Merah was described as a polar
introvert. The psychiatrist stated Merah's "mood is stable" but that
he "recently had dark thoughts" and spoke of "suicidal intentions." He
found Merah to be "anxious" and "introverted" but not "psychologically
disturbed". He said Merah exhibited "neurotic fragility due to the
departure of his father and lack of supervision on his mother's part."
Merah had a history of psychological problems, and French intelligence
officials have suggested he had a double life or even a split
personality which allowed him to party in nightclubs and drink alcohol
with acquaintances who were unaware that he was amassing an arsenal of
weapons, visiting Afghanistan and Pakistan and was methodically
plotting attacks.
In January 2008, he tried to join the French Army,
but was rejected due to his criminal past. In July 2010, he went to
the recruitment center of the Foreign Legion and stayed overnight, but
decided to leave before he could be evaluated.
According to declassified documents, the DCRI
(French domestic intelligence), Merah and his older brother Abdelkader
had been placed under surveillance in late 2009, in particular after
they traveled to Egypt, where Merah went to learn Arabic. In 2010, he
was identified as a "new recruit" in radical Islamist circles, and
questioned by the DCRI after returning from a visit to Pakistan.
French media reported that in 2010 he had forced a
neighbor's boy to watch bloody videos from Afghanistan and then beat
up the boy's sister after the mother intervened. Bernard Squarcini
said that Merah "appeared on radars" when arrested in Kandahar,
Afghanistan in December 2010, while visiting as a "tourist." He was
followed officially after his return from Pakistan in 2011.
The French newspaper JDD reported Merah's
friends described him as a "nice guy" who "got on well with everyone".
Sometimes his friends found him devout, but other times Merah would go
clubbing. A friend commented that Merah identified "more with Islam
than with France" One of his friends said that Merah had been seen in
a Toulouse night club three weeks before the attacks. He had also been
in Geneva, Switzerland on a skiing trip with two friends a month
before the attacks. He allegedly bought the GoPro video camera which
he used to film the attacks, from a Fnac store in Geneva.
According to Merah's lawyer, he was sentenced to a
month in prison on 24 February 2012 after driving without a driver's
licence, and was due before the judge again in April.
Merah had reportedly split from his wife days
before the shootings. He was unemployed at the time of the shootings
after having worked as a coachbuilder.
Manhunt
The killings spurred one of the biggest manhunts in
modern French history. The police erected roadblocks in Toulouse and
placed extra security outside Jewish and Islamic schools across
France. Because of the ethnic identities of the victims, most of whom
were of Jewish or Arab descent, police initially suspected the
involvement of neo-Nazis. Since he drew little attention to himself
otherwise, police faced an uphill struggle in focusing in on Merah as
a suspect, even as the killings continued. Merah had taken care to
ensure that the magazine and shell casings he left offered no
fingerprints or DNA. The search for Sergeant Ibn Ziaten's bogus
motorbike buyer was homing in on the Merahs' computer, as cross-checks
revealed that the Toulouse woman who owned the IP address had two sons
on the anti-terrorism watchlist. The hunt for the gunman's scooter
also took a decisive turn when Merah asked a motorcycle mechanic in
Toulouse about removing a GPS anti-theft tracking device on his bike.
Merah also said that he had just repainted the bike white.
Siege and death
An hour before police surrounded his apartment,
Merah called the French television channel France 24 and Ebba Kalondo,
the editor who spoke with him, reported that for Merah, "these acts
were not only necessary, but that they were to uphold the honour of
Islam.” According to Ebba Kalondo, "He said he was in connection with
al Qaeda, that what he had done was only the beginning. He said he was
against the law on the veil and fought against the French
participation in operations NATO in Afghanistan." At 03:00 local time
(02:00 UTC), the French police tried to arrest Merah at his apartment
on Sergent Vigné Street in the Côte Pavée neighborhood. Merah shot at
the police through the door, injuring three police officers in the
process.
The RAID, an elite anti-terrorist unit, surrounded
the 1960s five-storey block of flats soon after. Merah was armed with
an AK-47, an Uzi, a Sten, a Winchester 12 gauge Pump-action shotgun,
three Colt 45s, a 9mm Glock, and a Colt Python .357 Magnum. Further
weapons were found in a rented Renault Megane parked near the
apartment building. The five-story building block and nearby buildings
were evacuated and the police turned powerful spotlights onto Merah's
building in an attempt to blind him and prevent him from observing the
police operations. The electricity and gas supplies were cut off to
the apartment block and the street lights in the neighbourhood were
switched off. Merah exchanged a Colt 45 for a walkie-talkie which was
used to communicate with the police. He told them the location of a
bag containing the blood-spattered camera that he had used to film his
attacks. One of Merah's brothers was arrested, and another handed
himself into custody. Police found weapons and explosives in his
brother's car. His mother was brought to the scene to help with
negotiations, but she refused to become involved, due to her lack of
influence on him. Merah informed the police that he intended to give
himself up at 22:45. Contact was established with him at that time but
Merah then said that he would not succumb without a fight and would
kill policemen if necessary. In the late evening on 21 March, blasts
were heard at the apartment block which were intended to intimidate
the gunman into surrendering." The police blew off the window shutters
with a grenade, after which two shots were heard. After that there was
no response from the Merah until 11:00 the next day. The police
continued the explosions at regular intervals, in an effort to wear
Merah down. Officers did not know if Merah was alive as he did not
respond to the series of explosions during the night and on Thursday
morning.
At 10:30 on 22 March, the decision was taken to
arrest him. Grenades were thrown into the apartment but elicited no
response. A 15-strong team of specially trained officers decided to
enter the flat first by the door, then using the windows whose
shutters had been removed during the night. The team deployed
technical devices and video equipment to inspect the different rooms.
No presence was detected until a device was introduced into the
bathroom. At that point the killer emerged shooting long and frequent
bursts. The officers returned fire and snipers opposite attempted to
neutralise him. Mohammed Merah then jumped out of the window with
weapon in hand and continued to shoot. Merah was shot in the head by a
police sniper, and he was found dead on the ground.
Less than one hour later it was announced to media
in Toulouse that Merah was dead. Merah's death was later confirmed by
President Sarkozy. Agence France-Presse reported that three police
officers had been injured in the preceding gunfire, one of whom
sustained "fairly serious" wounds. It was discovered that Merah had a
bulletproof vest, components of Molotov cocktails and weapons parts
stockpiled inside his flat.
During the standoff with police, Merah told police
that he intended to keep on attacking, and he loved death the way the
police loved life. He also claimed connections with al-Qaeda.
Motivation
Prior to the discovery of Merah as the attacker,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the antisemitic motivation
of the school attack appeared obvious. After Merah was identified,
Sarkozy stated that "the Islamic faith has nothing to do with the
insane motivations of this man," and others have echoed this view.
Merah admitted anti-Semetic motivations for his attack. Some media
have described Merah as an "Islamic terrorist". Merah said that he was
motivated by France's ban on wearing the burqa, that "the Jews have
killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine," and he wanted to avenge
the French Army's involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Mustafa Akyol
argues that this is an expression of nationalism but not religion. An
editor at France 24 reported that Merah told him that these acts were
not only necessary, but that they were to uphold the honour of Islam".
Merah's other statement made during the murders, "you killed my
brothers, I kill you", is interpreted by Ed West as an expression of
tribalism and not religion.
Mohammed Merah older brother, Abdelghani, said that
Mohammed was raised in an "atmosphere of racism and hatred" and blamed
his family for Mohammed's attraction to extremist Islamism and
antisemitism. Merah's sister, Souad, was recorded saying, "I am proud
of my brother. He fought until the end... Jews, and all those who
massacre Muslims, I detest them." Abdelghani said that their mother
frequently stated that Arabs were born to hate Jews during their
childhood and that there may be more "Mohmmed Merah's" if families
were allowed to teach such hatred.
Mustafa Akyol argued that Merah was not motivated
by Islam and points out that Merah was seen at a nightclub the week
before the shootings. He commented that one did not have to be a pious
Muslim to be inspired by Al-Qaeda which represents militant Muslim
nationalism.
Dan Bilefsky linked Merah's anger to the
unemployment and alienation of immigrants in France and said this
affected his evolution into a self-styled jihadist. Rosie DiManno
argued that Merah was neither motivated by religion, nor the treatment
of immigrants in France. She noted that while Merah had familial links
with militant Islam (his mother was married to the father of Sabri
Essid, who was arrested in 2007 at an Al Qaeda safe house in Syria for
militants en route to Iraq), there was no evidence of Merah's
involvement with militant groups or even a religious congregation.
DiManno instead characterizes Merah as a sociopath who adopted a
terror agenda as a cover for his pre-existing rage and who sought
"posthumous grandeur."
Paul Sheehan attacks what he calls progressives
going into overdrive to "dissociate the violence from Islam" when it
was revealed the killer was a Muslim who supported al-Qaeda. He
observes that the film of the shootings was mailed to the al-Jazeera
TV had been dubbed with verses from the Koran invoking jihad and the
greatness of Islam and that Merah studied the Koran during his time in
prison which has become a recruitment ground for radical Islam. Sheean
argues that Merah specifically targeted Muslim soldiers and Jews and
that this was premeditated. President Sarkozy's intelligence adviser
stated that Merah did not originally plan on targeting the Jewish
school, but only did so after he arrived too late to kill a soldier
nearby.
According to Christian Etelin, Merah's lawyer since
he was 16, Merah was suffering from "psychological difficulties".
Etelin lawyer stated that Merah was abandoned by his father as a
child, and there were reports that he split with by his wife days
before the attacks. Etelin denied that Merah was an Islamist, and said
the shootings could have been an episode of "paranoid schizophrenia
during which he completely disconnected from reality." Bernard
Squarcini, the head of DRCI (France's domestic intelligence agency),
stated, "you have to go back to his broken childhood and psychiatric
troubles. To carry out what he did smacks more of a medical problem
and fantasy than a simple jihadist trajectory."
Intelligence documents later showed Mohamed Merah
was not working alone and had made more than 1,800 calls to over 180
contacts in 20 different countries, in addition to several trips to
the Middle East and Afghanistan, casting doubt over Squarcini's view
of Merah as a solitary figure that was not part of a terrorist
network.
Filming
Merah filmed all of the killings using a GoPro
camera strapped to his body. He made a video of them set to music and
verses of the Koran. The video was sent to news agency Al Jazeera.
After a request from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Al Jazeera
opted not to air the video. One video shows Merah shooting two Muslim
French soldiers in Montauban who is heard shouting Allahu Akbar.
Reactions
The attacks were condemned by many governments
around the world. The United Nations condemned the killings "in the
strongest possible terms." The French Council of the Muslim Faith also
condemned the attacks.
In a speech to Palestinian youths at an UNRWA
event, the European Union's High Representative Baroness Ashton said,
"When we think about what happened today in Toulouse, we remember what
happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in
Syria, and we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in
different parts of the world – we remember young people and children
who lose their lives." Israeli ministers harshly criticised her
comparison of the Toulouse murders to the situation in Gaza. Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "It is unthinkable to compare a
massacre and the Israeli army's surgical, defensive actions against
those who use children as human shields." Lady Ashton said that the
press reporting of her speech was "grossly distorted" and that had she
also referenced Israeli victims in Sderot, but this had been
incorrectly omitted from the original transcript.
The Palestinian Authority also condemned the
attacks as "racist crimes". Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad,
said terrorists must stop trying to justify their acts of violence "in
the name of Palestine.
Reactions in French society
On 19 March, the date of the attack on the Jewish
school, President Sarkozy declared the date to be "a day of national
tragedy." Both Sarkozy and Francois Hollande condemned the attacks. On
20 March, cities across France observed a minute's silence in
remembrance of the victims of the shooting at the Jewish school. Dalil
Boubakeur, Rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, condemned the attacks.
Gilles Bernheim, the Chief Rabbi of France, called for strengthening
the links between Jewish and Muslim communities. According to Rabbi
Marc Schneier thousands of Muslims and Jews joined together in
solidarity marches in communities throughout Paris.
Many Jewish children in France were afraid to go to
school after the shootings, and Jewish teenagers reported fears of
dressing in a recognisably Jewish manner. Some Israeli politicians
called on French Jews to emigrate to Israel to escape the
anti-Semitism in France.
A number of French media questioned the role of the
security services during the operation and whether more could have
been done to prevent the killings. French counter-terrorism expert
Christian Prouteau criticised the siege operation, saying tear gas
might have been used to capture Merah alive, and reduce the chance he
could attack police.
Following Merah's death, an English teacher from
Rouen asked her students for a moment of silence and called Merah a
"victim". Most of the students immediately left the classroom and
wrote to the director. Only when the students began to leave and
remonstrate did the teacher appear to back down, saying that she was
"not feeling too well" and would "perhaps take some time off." A
representative of teachers union SGEN-CFDT said she was weak and had
health concerns and immediately regretted what she said. A school
spokesman said what had happened was a "sad incident" and a
disciplinary procedure was under way. The teacher was suspended a few
days later at the request of French education minister Luc Chatel, who
said he "condemned this unspeakable behaviour without reservation".
Nicholas Vancour reported that the reaction in the
neighbourhood of Les Izards, a "sensitive urban zone" where Mohamed
Merah grew up, of which many are Muslim Arabs and where the
unemployment rate for people under 30 is rising and can reach 30%, was
to regard Merah to be "one of their own, no matter what he did." One
woman was supportive of Merah's family; a woman who was a family
friend of the Merahs, expressed sympathy for him, but said she didn't
condone his actions. A group of twenty youths accosted the police, and
Mohamed Redha Ghezali, a 20-year-old man from the neighbourhood, was
sentenced to three months in prison for praising Merah's actions. The
man while haranguing police officers had said, "My friend Mohamed is a
real man – too bad he wasn't able to finish the job." He was convicted
of "provoking racial hatred" and "apology for terrorism" and the
Toulouse prosecutor stated that the state would "systematically
pursue" people expressing support for Merah. Some young men of the
neighborhood found conspiracy theories more convincing than that one
of their own could be a killer. A movement is under way to mount a
demonstration in support of the imprisoned Abdelkader Merah, who faces
charges of complicity in murder and conspiracy to commit acts of
terrorism.
Mohammed Merah's older brother, Abdelghani, later
wrote a book condemning the hero-worship of Mohamed among some young
French Muslims. He recalled "whoops of joy" and that people were
congratulating his mother at the wake for Mohammed.
Rallies
On 19 March, several thousand people marched
silently in Paris in memory of the victims of the shootings. On 24
March, hundreds of people gathered in Lyon and Rouen, to pay tribute
to the victims in silent marches. Many held signs saying "We will
never forget". In Toulouse, 6000 people marched on 25 March, including
mayor Pierre Cohen, Chief Rabbi of France Gilles Bernheim and Hassen
Chalghoumi, the imam at Drancy.
Small demonstrations honouring Merah were held on
housing estates, including the Toulouse one where he grew up. A small
rally of around 30 people was held in Toulouse in tribute of Merah and
was dispersed by French police. The AGI reported that most protesters
were young women wearing the burka, which is banned in France in
public places. Several people acquainted with the killer attempted to
leave flowers outside his flat. Members of the group said this was a
gesture to restore dignity to the Muslim community of Toulouse and to
the gunman’s family and was not an attempt to vindicate Merah while
others said that they did not wish to judge him harshly and that the
vilification of Merah was unfair. The New York Times quoted Pierre
Cohen, the mayor of Toulouse stating that rumours of Muslims
organizing a demonstration for Merah were "false". Graffiti in
Toulouse read "Viva Merah", "Vengeance" and "Fuck the kippa" before
being cleaned.
Criticism of media
Joel Braunold criticised the "airbrushing
anti-Semitism out of the Toulouse attack" and described the view that
Merah was "imbued neither with the values of Islam, or driven by
racism and anti-Semitism" as shocking. He criticises the
"dehumanization of Merah’s victims" that were a religious leader and
three small children of a particular minority community, and the way
in which some have interpreted this as a symbol of attacking society
in general. He is disturbed at the "inabilities of some to even
mention anti-Semitism as a cause" despite the fact that this man’s
victims were not random and were Jews.
Aftermath
Fears of backlash
In the aftermath, many French Muslims feared the
stigmatization of the Muslim community, and an increase in
Islamophobia. President Sarkozy also warned against stigmatizing
millions of French Muslims because of the actions of a single
extremist.
Internet law proposal
President Sarkozy proposed a new law that would
imprison those who repeatedly visit websites promoting terror or
hatred. According to The Times of India, legal experts are
concerned that such a law could curtail freedom of speech. Reporters
Without Borders accused Sarkozy of trying to create an internet
surveillance system.
Anti-Semitic incidents
A spate of anti-Semitic incidents followed Merah's
murderous attack on the school. The French Jewish community documented
90 anti-Semitic incidents in the 10 days that followed Merah's attack.
The Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (SPCJ) recorded 148
anti-Semitic incidents in March and April with forty-three of those
classified as violent. The authorities also recorded 105 instances of
anti-Semitic intimidation and threats during those two months. Jewish
graves have been vandalised in Nice, France. The Daily Mail reported
that such vandalisms had occurred across France. The SPCJ said the
situation was "deeply worrisome" and reflected support for Merah's
attack. The Interior Minister Manuel Valls held a meeting with Jewish
representatives in which he promised increased protection for Jewish
institutions in France.
The French police investigated email and telephone
threats received by staff at the school in the days following the
attacks. On 26 March, a 12-year-old boy was hit and punched in the
back of his head as he left his Ozar Hatorah school in Paris "by
youths reciting anti-Semitic slogans". In one attack a Jewish man and
his friend were attacked by people identifying themselves as
Palestinians who promised to "exterminate" the Jews. In Villeurbanne,
three youths wearing Jewish skullcaps were leaving a Jewish school
when they were attacked with a hammer and iron bars. Incoming French
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault described the attack as "intolerable
violence."
Possible accomplice
Mohamed Merah's brother Abdelkader Merah, aged 29,
was detained after the death of his brother and faces preliminary
charges of complicity in murder and conspiracy to commit acts of
terrorism. Investigators believe that he may have assisted Mohamed
with the preparation of the killings. Abdelkader's lawyer denied these
allegations, saying that press reports that Abdelkader expressed pride
in his brother's acts were false, and that he had not been aware of
Mohamed's plans. In Les Izards (the community where Mohammed Merah
grew up), where some are planning to mount a demonstration in support
of Abdelkader, many find the idea of an organised plot by the Merahs
to be absurd.
Arrest and expulsion of radical Islamists
Police arrested 19 suspected militants, connected
to the extreme Islamist group Forsane Alizza, during dawn raids which
took place in Toulouse and a number of other cities. According to the
BBC the arrests appeared to be in response to the shootings. They were
suspected of inciting to violence and terrorism, according to the
daily Le Parisien. The CNN and BBC reported that French authorities
did not link any of those arrested to Merah. The French prosecutor has
denied any link between the arrests, which are the product of an
investigation begun in October 2011, and shootings. President Sarkozy
also said the arrests were not directly linked to Mohammed Merah.
In discussing alienation and Les Izards, the
community where Merah spent much of his youth, Nicholas Vinocur
writes, "The fear is, there may be more Mohamed Merahs in waiting
among Europe's largest Muslim community, of some five million people
in France – a worry that may partly explain Friday's roundup of 19
suspected militant Islamists as Sarkozy's government asserts a firm
grip on security." Professor Olivier Roy doesn't think that
disenfranchised youth are vulnerable to terrorism, writing "For every
Qaeda sympathizer there are thousands of Muslims who don the French
Army uniform and fight under the French flag."
Sarkozy requested that the police increase its
surveillance of "radical Islam" amid rising concerns of a jihadist
threat in France. There were suggestions that the government and DCRI
were intensifying efforts to deal with suspected militants after being
criticised for allowing Merah to slip through the net.
The domestic intelligence agency seized several
firearms, including five rifles, four automatic weapons and three
Kalashnikovs, as well as a bulletproof vest during the raids. French
officials said that two radical Islamists were deported and three more
are to be expelled. French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said that
the two deported were a Malian imam who had preached anti-Semitism and
promoted wearing the burka, which is illegal in France in public
space, and Ali Belhadad, an Algerian with involvement in a 1994
Marrakech attack. Two imams from Saudi Arabia and Turkey and a
suspected Tunisian militant are also due for expulsion from France. A
police source stated that some of the arrested were planning to kidnap
a Jewish magistrate.
On 4 April, French police arrested 10 people on
suspicion that they were "Islamist militants". On 5 April, four of
them were released after prosecutors found insufficient evidence to
detain them. On 6 April, there were reports that the French police
would release the last six individuals as well.
The Interior minister commented "We do not accept
Islamic extremism. This is not a new policy... but after what happened
in Toulouse and Montauban we have to be more vigilant than ever."
President Sarkozy said the aim was to deny the entry of certain people
to France who did not share the country's values and that, "It's not
just linked to Toulouse. It's all over the country. It's in connection
with a form of radical Islam" and added that “more suspected Muslim
extremists will be rounded up.” He said that after the traumatic
events in Montauban and Toulouse, it was necessary to "draw some
conclusions."
According to a Parisien report, the government
banned six Islamist leaders from entering France for a Muslim
conference expected to be held in Paris.
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