"4 shot dead outside Jewish school in France; Attack follows others recently near Toulouse" by Scott Sayare and Steven Erlanger | New York Times, March 20, 2012
TOULOUSE, France — A man opened fire outside a Jewish school in southwest France Monday morning, killing four people, three of them children, and wounding another, officials said.
It was the third killing of unarmed people in the region in little over a week, and police said the same gun was used in all three attacks.
Witnesses said a man fled the scene in Toulouse on a motorbike. Last week, a man on a motorbike killed three French paratroopers and critically wounded another in two separate shootings, police officials said.
There has been no claim of responsibility for any of the killings, which police are treating as acts of terrorism.
Michel Valet, the local prosecutor, said a rabbi, his two children, and another child were killed in the attack and a 17-year-old boy was seriously wounded.
The killer “shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school,’’ Valet said.
The attack is the worst on Jews in France since 1982, when the Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris was bombed at lunchtime, killing six people and wounding 22.
In 1980, a terrorist group threw a bomb at a Jewish synagogue on Rue Copernic in Paris, killing four people and wounding about 40.
Monday’s shooting brought a climate of fear to the region, with the French state ordering increased surveillance of all religious schools, as well as synagogues and mosques.
It also brought immediate condemnations from President Nicolas Sarkozy and from his main rival for the presidency, Francois Hollande, both of whom broke off their political campaigns to rush to the scene.
Cui bono?
An intensive search was underway and the government raised the terrorism alert level to its highest level ever across a section of southern France surrounding Toulouse. Sarkozy said 14 riot police units “will secure the region as long as this criminal’’ is at large....
Later, Prime Minister Francois Fillon was quoted as saying the enhanced security measures would be broadened to include all schools and religious buildings....
Ozar Hatorah is a Jewish society promoting religious education among young people, especially in the Middle East, northern Africa, and among the Sephardic Jewish community in France, which has the largest number of Jews in Europe, estimated to be at least 550,000. A promotional video posted in 2010 showed students engaged in academic and religious studies.
The authorities have been hunting the gunman who killed the soldiers since last week, and the military has told soldiers not to wear their uniforms in public.
The wave of killings has stunned France, prompting tense speculation about its cause. Even before the shootings Monday, there was discussion about a possible racial or ethnic component to the attacks.
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Related:
French Murder Suspect Tracked By Intelligence Services "For Years"
Toulouse Shooter was on Radar
"French Terror Attack: All the Hallmarks of an Intelligence Psy-op and False Flag
by Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 21, 2012
Mohammed Merah, the suspect in the killing of seven people outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, fits the pattern of an al-Qaeda intelligence asset. According to the BBC, he was on the radar of French authorities because of visits he made to Afghanistan and the “militant stronghold” of Waziristan in Pakistan.
More specifically, Merah was handled by France’s DCRI intelligence service “for years,” according to Claude Guéant, the interior minister....
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OZAR HATORAH SCHOOL ATTACK - INSIDE JOB
Story changes yet again - French shooting suspect not jailed in Afghanistan
Related: French hunt school killer, suspect neo-Nazi ties
Now it's an "Al Qaeda-linked" terror spree?
Suspect in French killings slain after standoff
He won't be telling any tales now, will he?
Police accused of failures over Toulouse terror deaths
Islamist killer who died in shootout with officers could have been captured earlier, and taken alive, say critics
Pfffft!
"No signs French gunman tied to militant groups; Autopsy shows he was struck by about 20 bullets" by Jamey Keaten | Associated Press, March 24, 2012
PARIS - Investigators have found no signs the suspected gunman behind a deadly string of attacks in southern France was under orders from Al Qaeda or any militant group, a top French official said Friday - disputing Mohamed Merah’s claim of terrorist ties before he died in a shootout with commandos.
In other words, the jig is up!
France’s prime minister and other officials have been fending off suggestions that antiterrorism authorities failed to adequately monitor Merah, who had been known to them for years before he carried out three deadly shooting attacks this month.
Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent who asserted links to Al Qaeda, was killed in a dramatic gunfight with police Thursday after a 32-hour standoff at his Toulouse apartment. Prosecutors said he filmed himself carrying out the attacks that began March 11, killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi, and three French paratroopers with close-range shots to the head....
An autopsy of the gunman’s body showed he received two fatal bullet wounds to the left temple and to the abdomen - but that he was hit by some 20 bullets, mainly in the arms and legs, judicial and police officials said.
The head of the elite police unit, Amaury de Hauteclocque - whose mission was to take Merah alive - insisted his men fired only in self-defense.
Investigators looking for possible accomplices homed in on Merah’s 29-year-old brother, Abdelkader, and the brother’s girlfriend, described by one official as espousing an ultraconservative form of Islam. Both were detained early Wednesday, along with Merah’s mother....
Abdelkader Merah had been implicated in a 2007 network that sent militant fighters to Iraq, but was never charged. Merah’s mother was to be released.
Meanwhile, a senior official close to the investigation said that despite Merah’s assertions to negotiators that he had Al Qaeda links, there was no sign he had “trained or been in contact with organized groups or jihadists.’’
The former auto body worker went to Afghanistan in 2010 and to Pakistan in 2011, and said he trained with Al Qaeda in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan. He had been on a US no-fly list since 2010.
The official said Merah might have made the assertion because Al Qaeda is a well-known “brand,’’ adding there was “absolutely no evidence allowing us to believe that he was commissioned by Al Qaeda to carry out these attacks.’’
Merah was questioned by French intelligence officers last November after his second trip to Afghanistan, and was cooperative and provided a USB key with tourist-like photos of his trip, the official said.
While he was under surveillance last year, Merah was never seen contacting any radicals and went to nightclubs, not mosques, the official said. People who knew him confirmed that he was at a nightclub in recent weeks.
Oh, no, not again!
Related: French gunman talked about 'cars, bikes, girls'
Some "CIA-Duh," huh?
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s spy chief, meanwhile, said that Merah told negotiators he attacked the Jewish school only after missing his original target - a French soldier....
That account appears to contradict Merah’s statement that his attacks were to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children, protest the French army’s involvement in Afghanistan, and a law banning Islamic face veils.
No other positions meant to be discredited?
The widow of the slain rabbi and mother of two of the slain children issued an emotional plea online Friday, urging Jewish parents to honor her dead family members by loving their children and teaching them to love “their fellow man.’’
In a letter released on an Orthodox Jewish website, Eva Sandler wrote that the “spirit of the Jewish people can never be extinguished.’’
I'm sad that innocent people are dead; however, I'm more sick of the supremacist arrogance and exclusion.
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"Is it an Israeli False Flag Again?
Israeli press reported this evening that French gunman Mohamed Merah had been on a trip to Israel in the past. According to the report, Merah's passport had Israeli stamps in it. The purpose of his visit is unknown. Israeli analysts suspect he was either trying to visit the Palestinian territories or preparing for a terror attack. However, I won’t rule out the possibility that Merah was actually trained by Israeli forces. Marah may have conducted a false flag operation. By way of deception is, after all, the Mossad’s motto.
Related: French question gunman’s brother
"More and more it looks like this guy was a patsy for a false-flag operation to build sympathy for Israel and a "wag the dog" to take the media focus off of the massacre of 16 civilians (9 children) by Americans in Afghanistan earlier this month. " -- Wake the Flock Up
"Al Qaeda" Killer's Extensive Links To French Authorities
By Brit, ResistRadio.com
The man accused of killing seven people during recent gun attacks in Toulouse has been killed, following a 32 hour standoff with police - as more information has come to light about his extensive links to the French authorities. Mohammed Merah, a self-proclaimed Al Qaeda operative, was reportedly found dead on the ground after being shot in the head and falling from his apartment window, following a five minute gun battle when police stormed the building.
Whilst French authorities claimed to want to end the standoff peacefully and take Merah alive, the siege's fatal finale conveniently removes from the picture a suspect who appears to have had a great deal of contact with both the French intelligence services and the police - and even with the US military.
French interior minister Claude Guéant yesterday revealed that Merah had been on the radar of the DCRI - France's domestic intelligence agency - "for years". It has since transpired that Merah was questioned by the intelligence service as recently as November 2011, after being summoned to explain trips he had made to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Astonishingly, Merah was reportedly granted freedom to leave by his French intelligence questioners after providing them with photographs supporting his claims of having merely been on an innocent tourist holiday.
That Merah's explanation satisfied the intelligence service is inexplicable, considering their familiarity with his track record of suspicious activity. Merah had reportedly made two trips to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and whilst his attorney Christian Etelin has denied such rumours, some have claimed he even spent time in a Kandahar jail before escaping during a Taliban breakout. Whilst Merah's reported time in an Afghan jail has yet to be established, other sources, including top French prosecutor Francois Mollins, have stated that he was arrested by Afghan police at a checkpoint and handed over to the US military, before being flown back to France. US military officials have claimed not to have any information regarding Merah's alleged detention in Afghanistan.
Today saw further revelations come to light about the French authorities' knowledge of Merah's violent tendencies. A report in French newspaper Le Télégramme details how the mother of a 15 year old boy claims she twice filed complaints with the police, after Merah showed her son violent Jihadist videos and extremist literature at his Toulouse apartment. The woman, identified by the pseudonym Aisha, said that:
"I am appalled. It took all these people [to be] killed for Mohammed Merah [to be] finally stopped,” she said. “The police knew all about the danger of this individual and his radicalism".
Le Télégramme also reports how Merah allegedly went into the street outside the woman's house wearing military fatigues, brandishing a sword, and shouting "I'm with Al-Qaida".
Mohammed Merah's older brother Abdelkader was apparently also well known to the authorities. He was arrested on suspicion of belonging to the Knights of Pride - an extremist group against the banning of the burka in France. It was from Adbelkader's computer that an unsecured email was allegedly sent to one of Mohammed's victims, arranging to view a motorbike - an appointment at which the paratrooper was murdered. Merah was tracked down after the IP address and location were traced from the email.
The French authorities' excuses for their inablility to prevent Merah's killings are highly questionable. As Merah very much fits the profile of a classic intelligence asset - young, disaffected, and with a history of petty criminality - serious questions should be asked about whether he really just "slipped through the net", or if in reality the intelligence services deliberately failed to prevent the attack, or even actively provocateured it.
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About that election:
"French protesters force Sarkozy to hole up in cafe while on campaign trail" Associated press, March 02, 2012
BAYONNE, France - Several hundred angry protesters booed President Nicolas Sarkozy, forcing him to take refuge in a cafe protected by riot police as he campaigned yesterday in France’s southwest Basque country.
Riot police surrounded the Bar du Palais in central Bayonne where Sarkozy holed up to get away from the protesters - some of them Basque nationalists, others carrying posters of rival Socialist candidate Francois Hollande.
Inside the cafe, Sarkozy denounced “the violence of a minority and their unacceptable behavior.’’
He really said that about Zionists?
He remained in the cafe for about an hour, meeting with residents of Bayonne. Some of the protesters outside threw eggs toward the barrier of riot police guarding the cafe.
:-)
The conservative Sarkozy trails Hollande, the front-runner, in the two-pronged April and May presidential election.
He really said that about Zionists?
He remained in the cafe for about an hour, meeting with residents of Bayonne. Some of the protesters outside threw eggs toward the barrier of riot police guarding the cafe.
:-)
The conservative Sarkozy trails Hollande, the front-runner, in the two-pronged April and May presidential election.
“Here, we’re in France, on the territory of the French republic, and the president of the republic will go everywhere,’’ Sarkozy said once inside the cafe. “And if that doesn’t please a minority of troublemakers, too bad for them.’’
The narrow streets of the historic center of Bayonne were packed with supporters and protesters following Sarkozy during his visit. Tension mounted as Basque separatists threw pieces of paper at him. They were joined by others holding portraits of Hollande and his presidential program.
“If this is the concept of democracy, that the Socialists associate with Basque separatists, if this is it, the country they have in mind, it doesn’t make you want to get there,’’ Sarkozy said to reporters inside the cafe.
Sarkozy left the cafe escorted by riot police and protected by an umbrella. The president’s campaign spokeswoman, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, asked Socialists to “respect the rules of democratic debate.’’
“It’s not because you don’t have ideas that you have to stop others from expressing theirs,’’ she said.
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And the other guy?
"An unlikely challenger in France; Socialist has shot to unseat Sarkozy" Washington Post, March 11, 2012
LE MANS, France - Francois Hollande, a second-fiddle fixture for years in French politics, has emerged as a possible giant-killer over the past 10 months.
According to polls, the glad-hander with a ready wit and perpetual smile has a real chance to block Nicolas Sarkozy’s reelection and become France’s first Socialist president since 1995.
With Europe in the grip of a punishing debt crisis, Hollande and his Socialists would have little margin for abrupt change should he replace Sarkozy’s conservative government in the two-round vote April 27 and May 6. But a Sarkozy defeat after only one five-year term would mark an unusual reversal for a politician who promised “rupture’’ in the way France does business and, with relentless energy, has propelled himself to prominence on the European stage.
Related: Sexy Strauss-Kahn
Sickening would be more like it.
The charges were dropped when prosecutors decided the woman was unreliable. But other sex-related accusations against Strauss-Kahn have since arisen in France, and the onetime luminary has vanished from the political stage.
As a recent political rally here demonstrated, however, Hollande has developed his own following in months of tireless campaigning, during which he has pledged to soften the impact of the debt crisis on France’s poor and unemployed and has attacked Sarkozy as a heartless friend of the rich....
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!
France cannot reduce its debt by cutting into unemployment benefits and health-care budgets, he declared, but must instead impose higher taxes on capital gains and close loopholes that allow the rich to pay smaller proportions of their incomes than wage-earners.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!
In addition, he said to raucous applause, the government must step in to cap the compensation and retirement packages of senior executives, which he noted seem to rise annually despite the financial crisis....
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"Poll gives Sarkozy hope in reelection fight" March 14, 2012
PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy of France heard his first welcome news in a while Tuesday: a boost in the polls likely to encourage his reach to the far right for votes and ideas in his battle for reelection.
For the first time in this campaign, a new poll suggests the long-unpopular president could beat Socialist Francois Hollande in the first round of voting next month. But, like all previous polls, it indicates Hollande would beat the incumbent convincingly in the crucial runoff.
The campaign remains full of uncertainties. A second poll made public Tuesday shows Hollande maintaining a solid first-round lead.
The conservative Sarkozy has shifted visibly to the right in his campaign, calling for a crackdown on immigration and criticizing measures accommodating France’s millions of Muslims. He is trying to tap votes from the resurgent far right and its candidate Marine Le Pen, who is polling at a strong third place and whose father made it into the 2002 presidential runoff....
It's okay when it's a globalist tool doing it.
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"Tear gas quells French steelworker protest" Associated Press, March 16, 2012
PARIS - French police fired tear gas at steelworkers worried about job losses Thursday, as they tried to force their way toward the headquarters of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reelection campaign.
The protest brought the troubles of France’s industrial heartland to the capital’s elegant boulevards and the lawns beneath the Eiffel Tower.
France’s high unemployment and stagnant economy are central to the campaign for elections in April and May. Many voters see the conservative Sarkozy as too friendly with the rich, and his Socialist challenger Francois Hollande is the frontrunner in polls.
Riot police and gendarmes met the protesters and tried to push them back with shields. After several minutes of fighting, the police fired tear gas to break up the crowd.
Yeah, that will win Nico a whole pile of votes.
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Related: Sarkozy Opens Poll Lead After France Shootings
Sarkozy's Backers To Use Toulouse Attacks To Steal French Election
"With four weeks to go until the first-round vote in the presidential election, the killings have become intensely, and unpleasantly, political. Mr Sarkozy has called for "national unity" and "dignity" but his re-election campaign is trying to extract maximum advantage from the affair. Senior figures in the President's UMP party have begun to attack François Hollande, the Socialist front-runner, as "soft" on terrorism."
The shootings were JUST WHAT Sarkozy NEEDED, huh?
The Return of Gladio And The Rebirth of Terror Under French Tyrant Nicolas Sarkrazy
