The head of the French intelligence agency DCRI said in an interview on Friday that the Toulouse shooter was arrested by Israel Police in Jerusalem in 2010, after he was found in possession of a knife.
Bernard Squarcini told the French newspaper Le Monde that Mohamed Merah, who killed four people in an attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday, was held by police in Jerusalem during his visit to Israel in 2010, but was released shortly after his detainment.
Squarcini said that Merah visited several other Middle Eastern countries during that trip, including Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Afghanistan. He said that French intelligence tracked him and investigated to see if he is suspicious, but found that he had not been engaging in any ideological activism or religious activity. And yet the US saw fit to place him on the No Fly List for some reason. Funny that. Continued on Page 47
Officials say an autopsy on the body of the gunman suspected of carrying out the killing spree in the city of Toulouse shows he died of two bullet wounds but that he was hit by some 20 bullets, mainly in the arms and legs.
The judicial and police officials said Friday that a bullet wound to the left temple and another to the abdomen of 23-year-old Mohamed Merah were fatal.
The officials said the autopsy also found some 20 bullets, mainly to the arms and legs of the man. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Continued on Page 47
An English teacher sparked outrage across France today after calling for her pupils to observe a minute's silence for Toulouse serial killer Mohammed Merah.
In disturbing scenes at Gustave Flaubert High School in Rouen, Normandy, Lorraine Collin, 56, described the 23-year-old who murdered seven including three children as himself being the 'victim of an unhappy childhood'.
This prompted up to 15 pupils aged between 17 and 18 to storm out of their classroom and report Ms Collin to their headmaster Luc Chatel, France's Education Minister, called for Ms Collin to be 'suspended immediately', saying he 'condemned this unspeakable behaviour without reservation'.
It came as Merah's elder brother said he was 'very proud' of what his brother had done, hailing him as someone who fought for what he believed in.
Continued on Page 47
#1
I believe the author of the article, and probably the folks quoted, are pretending nobody knows about the carbeques and the non-fatal attacks on Jews.
What if they're wrong? What if people actually know about these things?
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
03/23/2012 11:35 Comments ||
Top||
#3
One way that Muslims could deflect any pushback would be to condemn the attacks, in no uncertain terms - no waffling, no blame the victim, no reference to Palestine or Afghanistan. And say the same thing in Arabic as in French.
Instead, they will just whine and complain every time someone offends them by not treating them as special.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/23/2012 16:20 Comments ||
Top||
More polemics from Tariq Ramadan. You'll be surprised to learn that the murderous killing spree undertaken by Mohamed had nothing to do with his religion, its all the fault of the French.
He only went on a Jihad after being deprived of his true dignity by France. Continued on Page 47
#2
"...he ends up a Jihadi without real conviction.."
That's why he filmed his 'slay them wherever you find them' moment while shouting Allahu Akbar. Because he didn't really believe. Yeah right.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/23/2012 10:09 Comments ||
Top||
#3
But who paid for the terrorists extensive travelling?
I am assessing the French islamic websites. Until one of their own was implicated, they were attacking "nazis" for killing children. Now they are posting pics of babies that are said to be collateral casualties of IAF bombing.
I have counted 5 non-islamic causes for the terror. All blame Western Civilization for not allowing Merah to enforce shariah beheading and limb hacking. Those being the right of the slaves of allah.
We don't infest our homes with termites. Why infest our countries with pests?
#4
It's probably not the religion. It's actually the culture, that's in so many ways the antithesis of Western culture. It was the culture that gave birth to the religion, and the two have been reinforcing each other since 622 A.D.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/23/2012 17:37 Comments ||
Top||
#5
We don't infest our homes with termites. Why infest our countries with pests?
Snark of the day, JD.
A German court sentenced a Syrian-born militant for five years on Thursday for posting jihadi propaganda on the internet aimed at recruiting new members for Al Qaeda.
The higher regional court in Koblenz, western Germany said it convicted the 26-year-old defendant identified only as Hussam S on 44 counts of recruiting for "foreign terrorist networks" from September 2007 to December 2009. He was also found guilty of two counts of supporting foreign terrorist groups.
It said, "He released 44 publications online calling for participation in violent jihad by Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Islamic Jihad Union and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
"The evaluation of the internet postings found that the defendant not only called for armed jihad against foreign troops in Afghanistan and Iraq in particular but for the violent spread of terrorism around the world."
The court said he had published German-language propaganda online, much of it translated from audio and video messages by leading Al Qaeda members. In two cases, he posted a video showing the beheading of a U.S. citizen used as promotional material by Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Hussam S was arrested in July 2010 in the western German town of Montabaur. He was born in Syria and is of Palestinian origin. He has lived in Germany since 1990 and was registered as a student.
The jail sentence was close to the demand of federal prosecutors, who had called for five years and six months imprisonment.
The defendant did not address the court during his trial and his lawyers said the case against him was flawed without specifically calling for his acquittal.
Continued on Page 47
[AFP]. Mohammedans in French suburbs remain vulnerable to bad turban indoctrination but those lured into radicalism are an "ultra-minority" and the spread of jihadism is declining, experts say.
Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old suspected Al-Qaeda myrmidon of Algerian descent was killed Thursday following a shootout with police, after being linked to seven murders in southwestern La Belle France in the last eight days.
The former resident of a Toulouse suburb is believed to have been drawn into radicalism after joining a group of Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... -- an ultra-conservative brand of Islam -- and travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistain.
Such trips to Aghanistan "were quite common in the 1990s," amid the euphoria of the mujahedeen victory over Soviet troops who had invaded the country, said Samir Amghar, author of "Salafism Today."
"A number of people went to Afghanistan and Pakistain to train," explained the sociology professor at La Belle France's School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.
"But for several years, we have seen a decline in jihadism because of the strong pressure of the French and European security services," he added.
He said current estimates put the number of Salafists in La Belle France at between 12,000 and 15,000, but "jihadist Salafists are an ultra-minority."
Gilles Kepel, author of "Jihad, The Trail of Political Islam," said it was "worrying when the Salafists impose their rules, for example, wearing of the full veil, on other Mohammedans."
"When there is a rupture between their values and the values of the French Republic, it makes fertile terrain for radical Islam," he stressed, adding that bad turban recruiters target those "who are marginalised."
They are speaking "in a general manner to people in working class neighbourhoods, but not strictly to the working classes.
Radicals also target "a strong proportion who are from the middle and upper classes. People who have studied, who are university graduates," Amghar said.
But, he explained, the channels through which bad turban recruiters connect with new sympathisers have evolved since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
"In the 1990s, the radical imams, the preachers, were able to recruit in the mosques," he said.
"After September 11, because of the surveillance of the French intelligence services in the mosques, it became very difficult. The recruitment from then on happened through interpersonal relations, or over the internet.
Bernard Godard, co-author of "Mohammedans in La Belle France", said probing Merah's path to radicalisation was a crucial next step.
"We'll have to see how he was initiated, how he was fed jihadism," Godard said.
Speaking Thursday after Merah was killed, French President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... vowed to crack down on bad turban indoctrination.
He said he wanted legal action against people who regularly consulted jihadist websites or who travelled abroad for indoctrination and an end to French jails being a breeding ground for extremism.
"Henceforth, any person who habitually consults Internet sites which praise terrorism and which call for hatred and violence will be punished under criminal law," he said in a televised address.
Continued on Page 47
#1
He said he wanted legal action against people who regularly consulted jihadist websites or who travelled abroad for indoctrination and an end to French jails being a breeding ground for extremism.
We need the same approach in UK especially re the Pakistani youth.
#3
I have to speak out against the whole "arrest people for visiting extremist websites." I visit them periodically to satisfy my amateur academic curiosity. Should I go to jail? I think it is normal to study the enemy and it's normal to have a curiosity of the occult.
#4
Besides, Western governments own the internet. Allowing the jihadis to use the internet is a great way to monitor them, gather intel, etc. Take away the internet and I'd bet that intel on jihadi circles would plummet. Sarkosy is just looking for a pre-election bump in the polls.
[Dawn] Officials in Afghanistan and Pakistain told AFP on Thursday that they could not immediately trace the Toulouse gunman as having visited either country or held by US-led forces as announced in La Belle France.
French prosecutor Francois Molins said Mohamed Merah claimed to have been trained by Al-Qaeda in Wazoo, the most notorious hotbed of Islamist militancy on the Afghan-Pakistain border.
Molins said the suspect went to the region twice and was on one occasion placed in durance vile by Afghan police and handed over to US troops, who put him on a flight back to La Belle France.
But in Kabul, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, front man for NATO's ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said: "As of now I have no information on him being in ISAF or US custody.
"We are working to ascertain the details of his activities, to include if he was jugged, during his suspected time in Afghanistan."
The governor in Kandahar -- the Taliban's birthplace where French officials said Merah was placed in durance vile in 2010 -- also claimed no Frenchie had been placed in durance vile there for six years, but also conceded police do not keep records.
In Pakistain, security officials also denied any trace of Merah, although they pointed out there were ways for would-be Islamist Islamic fascistito slip across the country's mostly non-existent borders undetected.
"People like Merah use different channels to sneak into Pakistain. These are the kind of channels, which their networks identify as safe and risk free," one senior Pak security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said Pakistain "was not ruling out" that Merah was trained in Waziristan or elsewhere in the semi-autonomous Afghan border areas, but said its security agencies were not aware of his presence in the country.
"We are talking to French authorities on the issue and looking into his possible connections to Al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain but it is not possible at the moment to go into the specifics," he said.
Merah, a self-proclaimed Al-Qaeda Death Eater who French officials say made two trips to Pakistain and Afghanistan, was rubbed out in an assault on his flat on Thursday. He was suspected of killing seven people in southern La Belle France.
As La Belle France takes stock after a shoot-out on Thursday which left the man believed to have killed seven dead including three Jewish children and a rabbi, Germans were warned they could face the same horror on their streets.
Such attacks could take place in Germany, said Rainer Wendt, chairman of the DPolG police union. They could take place in Iceland or Portugal, too, though I don't believe either is swarming with Islamists like Germany so likely they won't...
He told the business daily Handelsblatt that 250 of "roughly 1,000 sympathisers of Jihad-terrorism in Germany" had received attended terrorist training camps on the Pakistain-Afghanistan border.
But it is impossible for security agencies to keep a round-the-clock observation of these 250 people. "In this respect it is of course possible at any time that also in Germany a radicalized single perpetrator commits such actions like in Toulouse," said Wendt.
250 of "roughly 1,000 sympathisers of Jihad-terrorism in Germany" had attended terrorist training camps on the Pakistain-Afghanistan border.
He called for politicians to make training in so-called "terror camps" a crime in Germany.
"Politicians would be well advised to think about this [legal] instrument and not first become active when there are concrete plans for an attack," he said. "Then it can be very quickly too late," he added.
The police union leader noted that the French police were able to quickly home in on the suspect because of internet research and called on the German government to quickly adopt legislation that would allow German authorities to store and retain internet data.
Separately, a German Jewish leader condemned the French massacre, and said it should be regarded as a "warning signal for Germany. The problem of Islamism has been "played down, misjudged and underestimated," Charlotte Knoblauch said in Munich.
"Hostility toward Jews is growing rapidly among Moslems living in Germany," said Knobloch, the former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, while calling on politicians and society as a whole to not hide from these problems.
The Central Council of Moslems in Germany condemned the Toulouse killings and warned the media against using the attacker's propaganda to try to explain the violence.
"Say anything and we'll cut yer sister!"
That would "make a mockery of the victims and hurt Moslems worldwide," said council chairman Aiman Mazyek said in a statement on Thursday.
Chairman Mazyek needs to work on his taqqiya...
He said the council was "deeply shocked over the deaths from the attacker" and had already expressed his sympathies to the Jewish community in a letter to the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann.
The letter was back-copied to the Jewish school in Marseilles, to show precisely the respect the Moslem-German community feels for those mourning in Toulouse.
The Moslem council was very appreciative that French President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... invited both Jewish and Moslem representatives to the presidential Elysee palace.
"That was an immensely important signal," the statement said. It "showed that the attacker's goal of inciting religions against each other backfired."
How many Moslem schools have radical Jewish Frenchmen raked with gunfire, again? Oh, yes: none.
The statement said, "there is no justification in Islam for such baseless and shameful acts."
[Ynet] A senior American official in Kandahar confirmed to French newspaper La Monde that the passport of the terrorist from Toulouse Mohammed Merah had stamps that indicate that he visited Israel, Syria, Iraq and Jordan.
[Ynet] The Jund al-Khalifa group which is associated with al-Qaeda in Maghreb took responsibility for the Toulouse massacre and called on France to reexamine its hostile policy towards the Islamic minority.
Al Q. in the Maghreb seems an unlikely choice, given that the gentleman trained in Pashtunistan. But perhaps his mobile phone and laptop will reveal all.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Officials in Afghanistan and Pakistain told AFP on Thursday that they could not immediately trace the Toulouse gunman as having visited either country or held by US-led forces as announced in 
