France - Interior Ministry: "There are 200 to 300 Mohammed Merahs in France, the secret services do not have the means to monitor all 24h/24"

France - Interior Ministry: "There are 200 to 300 Mohammed Merahs in France, the secret services do not have the means to monitor all 24h/24".(Atlantico.fr).GoogleTranslate.The Interior Ministry on Thursday declassified documents classified defense secrets of the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI) on Mohamed Merah. The terrorist was not only known services since 2009, but it was also a "prime target" of the DCRI for its proximity to Toulouse radical Islamists. The French intelligence could they avoid the drama?
Atlantico: In the reports of the DCRI sent for trial by the Interior Ministry, it appears that the police had measured the threat posed by Mohamed Merah. Can we therefore speak of a fiasco of the French intelligence services?

Alain Chouet: The people of the DCRI doing the best possible with the means at their disposal. The problem was what kind of threat was opposite. I still consider the case Merah is primarily a psychiatric case. People who have psychiatric and its ideological profile currently in France, there are 200 to 300. All do not pass the act, far from it, fortunately. Organized monitoring H24 these people, given the working conditions in France, would require 12 to 15 people by "subject". If we multiply that by 200 or 300, then it exceeds the current size of the DCRI. Anyway, we will never create a net with meshes tight enough to prevent psychiatric deviance. Look what just happened in the U.S. (note: the killing of Aurora in a cinema) despite all the security system set up after September 11, 2001. Read the full story here.

Alledged 'Al Qaeda Militant' ex - psychiatric patient Takes four Hostages in Toulouse Bank

Alledged 'Al Qaeda Militant' ex - psychiatric patient"Takes four Hostages in Toulouse Bank.(CNBC).AP - A man who said he was a member of al Qaeda and armed with explosives was holding several people hostage in a bank in the southwestern French city of Toulouse on Wednesday, police said. He released one of the hostages in exchange for food and water in the early afternoon. The man took the hostages, who included the bank manager, in a branch of French bank CIC around mid-morning and fired a shot after an attempted armed robbery apparently went wrong, UNSA police union official Cedric Delage said. A second shot was fired in mid-afternoon, according to two police sources. "The man has made clear that he is not acting for money, but for religious reasons," Prosecutor Michel Valet told reporters. A police official in Toulouse says one of the hostages, a woman, has been released. The official says negotiations are under way with the hostage-taker. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the subject.The hostage-taker asked for the elite RAID commando unit to come to the scene - the same squad which shot dead 23-year-old gunman Mohammed Merah in March after a long standoff at his home, which was just meters from the site of Wednesday's siege.A police source said police had identified the hostage-taker and brought in a person who knew him to help with negotiations. The source said the suspect had a name of North African origin and had spent time in a psychiatric hospital.Hmmm... he is not acting for money, but for religious reasons......Now what religion might that be?Read the full story here.More here.

New book ‘traces’ Toulouse killer Mohamed Merah to al-Qaeda stronghold.

New book ‘traces’ Toulouse killer Mohamed Merah to al-Qaeda stronghold.(AA).Western intelligence “traced” Mohamed Merah, the extremist who shot dead seven people in France, to a Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region, back in 2011 but did not inform France until after his killings, a new book says. “The Merah Case: the Investigation” by journalists Eric Pelletier and Jean-Marie Pontaut, due out on June 14, says: “Western intelligence services” established a link between Merah and “an organization close to al-Qaeda”. It claims the spy services had detected the activation of “two Internet addresses” linked to Merah in September 2011 in Miranshah, the capital of Pakistan’s Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold of North Waziristan. It also establishes that Merah was using at the time a telephone number known to be used to contact an extremist group. The journalists wrote that France’s DCRI domestic intelligence service “recognizes” having received the information, but only “several days after” Merah’s killings in southern France. Merah, a self-confessed al-Qaeda follower who admitted to having been in Waziristan, was killed in a police siege in Toulouse in March after shooting dead three paratroopers, a trainee Rabbi and three Jewish children, in a spree that shocked France.A French intelligence agent quizzed Merah in November 2011 upon his return to France from Pakistan, but apparently believed his claims that he was visiting the region as a tourist. The brother of the motorbike murderer, Abdelkader Merah, known to the police as an Islamic radical was indicted for complicity in the murders and imprisoned late March. He remains the only suspect to be arrested in connection with the attacks.Read the full story here.

Mohamed Merah had officially no longer a valid French passport since April 2008.

Mohamed Merah had officially no longer a valid French passport since April 2008.(Liberte).Apparantly Mohamed Merah, the alleged assassin of the Jewish school in Toulouse and three soldiers,is a French national but also Algerian. This was stated by those close to the case and at liberty to disclose the matter. The day he died, on 22 March, Mohamed Merah had no valid French passport. It had expired nearly four years before.The same sources state that a single French passport was issued to Mohamed Merah. Born October 10, 1988 in Toulouse, there was only one application at the town hall. His French passport was issued April 22, 1998 (he was then 09 years, 5 months and 12 days) in Toulouse and it was never renewed. The French document is valid for 10 years, Mohamed Merah could no longer travel abroad with his French passport since April 22, 2008.
But his Algerian passport was still valid. On 20 July 2005 he obtained the official document at the Algerian Consulate in Toulouse. It was renewed March 20, 2010, always in the same consulate.Thus, since April 22, 2008, Mohamed Merah was only able to travel (legally) outside of France with an Algerian passport "The Israeli authorities, through the Shin Bet (internal security) confirmed that Mohamed Merah visited the Jewish state in 2010, for 3 days. He arrived in Israel from Jordan, crossing the Allenby Bridge, which forms the border between the two nations. Was he using an "Algerian Passport"?
He took a long, long, journey. This led him to Afghanistan, in late 2010 and then to Pakistan, the following year. In an interview with Le Monde, Bernard Squarcini, head of the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI), describes this journey that would have occurred off the marked trails of international jihadism. He received contacts from his older brother Abdelkader, considered a fundamentalist? Mohammed spend some time in Cairo at his brother after going to Turkey, Syria, Lybia, Jordania and Israel.The "tourist" was even briefly arrested, in Jerusalem, Israel, carrying a knife.Questionned briefly at a police station, he was released.
Mohamed Merah's brother was investigated by the Belgian police in 2007-2008 for recruiting Jihadists.(LaMeuse).In 2007-2008, the Belgian Federal Judicial Police has taken a close interest in Merah Abdelkader, Mohamed's brother. But the evidence was not sufficient to press charges. However, Abdelkader could be the brain, the instigator of the murders committed in Toulouse by the younger brother, shot by men of the Raid. Abdelkader was not the focus of research. It would rather appear "on the edge" of a 'gang', or more specifically a recruitment network jhadiste based in Belgium. A network that was suspected of sending young Belgian and French activists to Cairo before joining the fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "But the evidence was not sufficient, either in France or Belgium. This case then could not succeed in court, "says the source.Read the full story here.(GoogleTranslate).

French Police arrest 19 people in Toulouse and other cities in raids aimed at "Radical Islam".

French Police arrest 19 people in Toulouse and other cities in raids aimed at "Radical Islam".(AlJazeera).French police have arrested 19 people in dawn raids across a number of cities in what President Nicolas Sarkozy described as a crackdown on "radical Islam". Several of the arrests on Friday occured in the southwestern city of Toulouse, where an al-Qaeda inspired gunman carried out a series of attacks earlier this month that left seven people dead.
Agents from France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency working with anti-terror and elite police units carried out the dawn raids in Toulouse, Nantes, Marseille, Lyon, Nice, Le Mans, Paris and other areas. Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Sarkozy confirmed the arrests and said that weapons had been seized. He said the operation was "linked with a form of radical Islam" and suggested that further raids would occur. "We have some extremely precise questions to ask a certain number of people and what happened this morning will continue," he said. "There will be other operations that will continue and will also allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people." Police said Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons were seized during the raids. Among those arrested was Mohammed Achamlane, the head of a suspected extremist group called Forsane Alizza, the sources said, with three Kalashnikovs, a Glock pistol and a grenade seized from his home.Read the full story here.

Mohamed Merah's brother was investigated by the Belgian police in 2007-2008 for recruiting Jihadists.

Mohamed Merah's brother was investigated by the Belgian police in 2007-2008 for recruiting Jihadists.(LaMeuse).In 2007-2008, the Belgian Federal Judicial Police has taken a close interest in Merah Abdelkader, Mohamed's brother. But the evidence was not sufficient to press charges. However, Abdelkader could be the brain, the instigator of the murders committed in Toulouse by the younger brother, shot by men of the Raid. Abdelkader was not the focus of research. It would rather appear "on the edge" of a 'gang', or more specifically a recruitment network jhadiste based in Belgium. A network that was suspected of sending young Belgian and French activists to Cairo before joining the fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "But the evidence was not sufficient, either in France or Belgium. This case then could not succeed in court, "says the source.Read the full story here.(GoogleTranslate).

Breaking - Al Jazeera not to air French Merah killings video.

Al Jazeera not to air French Merah killings video.(AJ).Al Jazeera has said it will not air a video that it received in a mail, showing three shooting attacks in Toulouse and Montauban in southern France this month.
The network on Tuesday said the video did not add any information that was not already in public domain. It also did not meet the television station's code of ethics for broadcast.
The video did not show the face of the murderer, nor did it contain a statement from him. The attacker appeared to be acting alone.The video was entitled "Al Qaeda attaque la France".
The attacks killed seven people, including three children, three soldiers and a teacher.Read the full story here.

Shin Bet security service confirms Toulouse gunman spent time in Israel.

Shin Bet security service confirms Toulouse gunman spent time in Israel.(Haaretz).An investigation by Israeli intelligence revealed on Monday that Mohamed Merah, the gunmen responsible for last week’s Toulouse shootings, spent time in Israel and Palestinian territories over a year and a half ago.
According to the Shin Bet, Merah entered Israel after crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan in September 2010. He was investigated by the Shin Bet. The investigation did not bring up any suspicious information, and he was allowed to enter the country.Furthermore, The Shin Bet investigation could not confirm a claim by the French intelligence that Merah was arrested in Israel with a knife.

Merah stayed in Israel for a total of three days, during which it is unknown whether he was involved in any terror-related activity.

Security sources told Haaretz that Merah visited Israel before his stay in Afghanistan or Pakistan, thus there was no information that could indicate whether or not he constituted a security threat.

The revelation comes a day after a French judge placed Merah’s brother under formal investigation. Abdelkader Merah is set tobe moved to a prison and remain there for the duration of an inquiry into suspected complicity in a spate of fatal shootings.

A legal source told Reuters that four anti-terrorist judges would lead an inquiry into gunman Mohamed Merah's killing of three Jewish children, a rabbi and three soldiers, and investigate his elder brother for complicity.

"He has been placed under formal investigation in line with the prosecutor's requirements," the source said. Read the full story here.

'Terminated' jihadi Mohammed Merah had visited Israel.

'Terminated' jihadi Mohammed Merah had visited Israel.(JPost).French gunman Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers and four Jews in France in the last two weeks, had been on a trip to Israel in the past, France's Le Monde newspaper reported Thursday.According to the report, Merah's passport had Israeli stamps in it. The purpose of his visit is not known, but analysts suspect he was either trying to visit the Palestinian territories or do reconnaissance to plan a terror attack
The Jerusalem Post could not confirm the veracity of this report.
Based on the stamps in his passports, Merah also visited Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Afghanistan.
The 23-year-old gunman who said al-Qaida inspired him to kill seven people in France died from a gunshot wound to the head on Thursday as he scrambled out of a ground-floor window during a gunbattle with elite police commandos.
Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, died in a hail of bullets at the end of a 30-hour standoff with police at his apartment in southern France and after confessing to killing three soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi.
He was firing frantically at police from a Colt 45 pistol as he climbed through his apartment window onto a verandah and toppled to the ground some 5 feet (1.5 meters) below, in a suburb of the city of Toulouse, according to prosecutors and police.
Two police commandos were injured in the operation - a dramatic climax to a siege which riveted the world after the killings shook France a month before a presidential election.
"At the moment when a video probe was sent into the bathroom, the killer came out of the bathroom, firing with extreme violence," Interior Minister Claude Gueant told reporters at the scene.
"In the end, Mohamed Merah jumped from the window with his gun in his hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground."
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Merah had taken refuge in his bathroom, wearing a bullet-proof vest under his traditional black djellaba robe, as elite police blasted his flat through the night with flash grenades.
Police investigators were working to establish whether Merah had worked alone or with accomplices, Molins said, adding that Merah had filmed his three shooting attacks with a camera hung from his body and had indicated that he had posted clips online.
The most disturbing image of the attacks showed him grabbing a young girl at a Jewish school on Monday by the hair and shooting her in the head before escaping on a scooter.
The killings have raised questions about whether there were intelligence failures, what the attacks mean for social cohesion and race relations in France and how the aftermath will affect President Nicolas Sarkozy's slim chances of re-election.
Sarkozy called Merah's killings terrorist attacks and announced a crackdown on people following extremist websites."From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished," he said in a statement. "France will not tolerate ideological indoctrination on its soil."Hmmmm.........72 'surgeons' couldn't help him now.Read the full story here.


Updated :
Mohammed Merah, the terrorist who murdered seven people, including a rabbi and three young children, and who was killed by French security forces in Toulouse, visited Israel several years ago, it was reported Thursday.
Channel 10 News reported that the reason for Merah’s visit to Israel is not entirely clear, but it is believed he came to gather intelligence for his attack.
The Channel 10 report was based on a comment made by an American officer serving in Afghanistan to the French newspaper Le Monde. The officer told the newspaper that Merah’s passport had been stamped with entry to and exit from Israel.
However, the National Immigration Authority said on Thursday evening that an initial investigation found that Merah never visited Israel. Kol Yisrael radio reported that the National Immigration Authority said that the terrorist's name, as published in the media, was not found in the list of arrivals to Israel. The authority added that it is continuing to investigate the matter.
Channel 10 noted that there are conflicting reports about whether Merah was identified as an Al-Qaeda activist before 2010, which is when he allegedly visited Israel. The report noted that if he was indeed suspected to be an Al-Qaeda terrorist, then Israeli procedure would have called for him to be interrogated at the airport and to undergo a thorough security check.
It is unknown whether Merah was indeed interrogated or checked, the report said. The Israel Security Agency refused to comment on the issue and said that it was still being review reviewed.Source INN.

Video report - Toulouse - Lone jihadi Mohamed Merah terminated.

Police sources say Mohammed Merah is dead.

Didier Martinez, of the SGP police union, has just confirmed to media at the scene that Merah is dead. (Telegraph).Three policemen are wounded, one seriously during the shootout.We sent in special cameras to be able to see where he was but we could not locate him. It was when we were able to locate him in the bathroom that he came out shooting madly at everybody. The police had never seen anything like this kind of violence and the RAID officers had to protect themselves.
In the end, Mohammed Merah jumped out of the window, still shooting. He was found dead on the ground.Police fired 300 rounds during the assault.Read the full story here, more here Live French.

Meet Mohammed Merah - The face of a Jihadi lone wolf.

Meet Mohammed Merah - The face of a Jihadi lone wolf.(Calgaryherald).As police psychologists tried to talk him into surrendering peacefully, Merah gave the same impression of calm determination and self-control as the gunman on a scooter recorded by security cameras at the Ozer Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday."With the RAID negotiators, he explained a lot about his itinerary," Gueant said.Exactly when and how Merah slid from petty crime to Islamist radicalism remains unclear."His radicalization took place in a Salafist ideological group and seems to have been firmed up by two journeys he made to Afghanistan and Pakistan," the interior minister said
During the first of those trips, Merah was picked up by chance at a road check by local police in Kandahar and handed over to the U.S. army, which put him on a flight back to France, according to Francois Molins, the public prosecutor in charge of the case.
A French security source said that was in 2010 after Merah had spent about a year in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. The gunman said he had undergone military training with al-Qaida in the Pakistani province of Waziristan, Molins told reporters.
U.S. officials declined comment on any role in handling Merah in Afghanistan but said they believed he was probably not affiliated with what remains of the core al-Qaida organization created by the late Osama bin Laden and led now by Ayman al Zawahiri.
Instead, they believe he is probably a lone wolf, or almost-lone-wolf, with at most a handful of associates including perhaps his brother.
Molins said Merah's elder brother, Abdelkader, 29, who is being questioned by investigators, was known to the security services for having helped smuggle Jihadist militants into Iraq in 2007. Police found explosives in a car owned by Abdelkader, the prosecutor said.
Molins said Mohamed Merah made his own way to Afghanistan without using networks of facilitators under surveillance by Western intelligence. His second Afghan stay in 2011 was cut short after three months when he contracted hepatitis A and returned to France in mid-October, the prosecutor said.
The daily Le Monde said Merah had trained with Pakistani Taliban fighters in a border tribal zone before being sent into southwestern Afghanistan to fight against NATO forces supporting the Kabul government.French troops are part of that NATO operation, which may explain why the first victims of the gunman's killing spree were serving paratroopers killed in Toulouse on March 11 and Montauban on March 15.
French intelligence sources said about 30 French fighters trained by the Taliban were believed to have taken part in attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

Video - Mohammed Merah driving BMW making shooting gestures & Shouting.

Toulouse siege - Mohammed Merah's brother was 'monitored' for broader investigation into Islamist extremism

L-R Toulouse victims Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two sons, Gabriel, 3 and Arye, 6, and Miriam Monsonego, 8

Toulouse siege - Mohammed Merah's brother was 'monitored' for broader investigation into Islamist extremism.(Telegraph).Merah reportedly contacted on of the soldiers he killed via the internet on the pretext of wanting to buy his motorcycle. Investigators recognised the IP address - that of his brother - because it was already being monitored as part of a broader investigation into Islamist extremism. On Monday, officers began tapping Merah's phone and decided to move against his house, around 3km from the Jewish school he attacked.

Before the perpetrator has even been apprehended, the apologists for Islam have already started to do their work.

Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, says today that it was necessary to avoid "conflating the Muslim religion" with the man suspected of the seven murders in Toulouse and Al Qaeda, who claims to be a member of Al Qaeda.

It was necessary to avoid "conflating the Muslim religion, which is 99% peaceful, civic-minded, responsible, non-violent, completely integrated into our country and these tiny little fringes of people who have decided to commit an evil atrocity", said Dalil Boubakeur.

Source: Le Figaro

The presidential candidate of the Front de Gauche [Left Front], Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said today that the "first duty" was now to "fight against hateful generalisations and stigmatisations," following the identification of the presumed perpetrator of the massacres in Toulouse and Montauban.

"The identification of the degenerate criminal who challenged us is good news", declared Jean-Luc Mélenchon in a press release. "However, our first duty is to fight against hateful generalisations and stigmatisations for which this situation could serve as a pretext", he added.

Source: Le Figaro

Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of the Muslim religion, said:

These actions are in total contradiction with the foundations of this religio...The Muslims of France are offended by this claim of belonging to this religion.

Libération

Hmmmm......We keep forgetting that it is a 'religion of peace' that's how things like 'Islamofauxbia' come to life.

Video - Toulouse siege Update.

Breaking ! Toulouse 24 year old 'French Algerian jihadist' Mohammed Merah Not under arrest

Toulouse 24 year old 'French Algerian jihadist' Mohammed Merah Is not under arrest.(Telegraph).The man identified by the raid in Toulouse was reportedly arrested during the Raid in a building in Toulouse. Explosives were found in the car the brother of the chief suspect in the killing of Toulouse.Read the fullstory here (Live).French Direct channel here.

Updated : 57 Claude Guéant, the French interior minister, has denied that the gunman has been arrested, contradicting earlier reports.

Toulouse shoot out with 24 year old 'French Algerian jihadist' Mohammed Merah, 3 French police injured.

Toulouse shoot out with 24 year old 'French Algerian jihadist' Mohammed Merah, 3 French police injured.(JPost).TOULOUSE, France - A gunman suspected of killing three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school wounded three police officers in a shootout at a house in Toulouse in southwestern France on Wednesday and said he was a member of al-Qaida. Police believe the suspect to be holed up in the building.
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said the man targeted in the raid was a 24-year-old Algerian man Mohammed Merah who had visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had shot dead the four out of revenge for France's military involvement abroad. He is also suspected by authorities of having killed three soldiers of North African origin last week.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, campaigning for re-election in a presidential poll in five weeks time, has blamed racism for Monday's school attack. His handling of the crisis could be a decisive factor in determining how the French people vote."He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al-Qaida," Gueant told journalists in Toulouse, referring to the gunman.
"He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to attack the French army because of its foreign intervention."His two brothers are also detained by police seeking to verify their roles in the case.France has troops in Afghanistan as part of NATO forces.
Gueant did not say how they had tracked the man down, but that police were talking to his brother at a separate location in connection to the killings.
His mother had also been brought to the scene to help negotiate with the man, who is holed up in a small apartment building in the leafy neighborhood.But she would not get in touch him, claiming to have no more influence over him, as is the case with many jihadists who turn away from their families.
The fact that he's gone to Pakistan on two occasions showed that he had links with organized Islamist networks.The suspect stayed twice in Pakistan in 2010 and 2011. He was arrested in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan in late 2010. Afghan officials have warned the French police, who inserted his name from that date in their information files.Heavily armed police in bullet-proof vests and helmets cordoned off the area where the raid was taking place, in a suburb a few kilometers from the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school where Monday's shootings took place.Reuters witnesses heard several shots at about 0440 GMT.A police source said the police could launch an assault if the standoff lasted for some time. "There are more and more people around, so this creates a dangerous situation."Read the full story here, Live report here from French Station.