Cet article est la version actualisée de celui publié par Ami Magazine.
A concise version was published in English by AMI Magazine
That article is published in French in a more detailed version.
Attentats islamistes, dont l’un antisémite, à Toulouse et Montauban par Mohamed Merah, djihadiste salafiste franco-algérien
Al-Qaeda’s French-Algerian “mujahidin” Mohamed Merah killed 7 persons in South-Western France
Latifa ibn Ziaten
That article is published in French in a more detailed version.
Attentats islamistes, dont l’un antisémite, à Toulouse et Montauban par Mohamed Merah, djihadiste salafiste franco-algérien
Al-Qaeda’s French-Algerian “mujahidin” Mohamed Merah killed 7 persons in South-Western France
Latifa ibn Ziaten
On March 19, 2012, at about 8:00, a
man who drove a Yamaha scooter shot at Jews in front of the Ozar Hatorah highschool, in Toulouse,
a south-western French city.
He killed Rabbi Jonathan Sandler,
30, and his two sons, Arye, 5, and Gabriel, 4.
He then entered into the school. As
he had a problem with his gun, he used a second more efficient gun. He caught
by her hair Miriam Monsonego, school principal Yaacov Monsonego’s daughter,
aged 7, and shot her dead. He seriously shot Bryan Aaron Bijaoui, 15, who was
trying to protect and save Miriam. The Jewish teen has been
hospitalized.
The killer left driving his Yamaha scooter.
He behaved in a calm and determined way and filmed the killings with a camera
attached to a chest harness.
More than 200 Jewish pupils go to
the Toulouse Ozar Hatorah high school, which is located in a calm area of Toulouse , and has two security cameras. CRIF-Toulouse President Nicole Yardeni saw the videos of
the attack ; “It was like a horror film”, she said.
“The situation has
changed in France .
There is a growing anti-Semitism in France ”, Ozar Hatorah-France
President Jean-Paul Amoyelle deplored. About 4,500 pupils go to Ozar Hatorah nurseries, schools and high schools.
A Jewish pupil’s mother
criticized recent easing of security measures concerning that Jewish
school.
France-born Rabbi Jonathan Sandler is
the son of the President of the Versailles
Jewish community, Samuel M. Sandler. An Ozar Hatorah alumni, he left Jerusalem last September
for a 2-year mission as a teacher of Hebrew and Judaism (kodech) in that Jewish high school. Rabbi Sandler is survived by
his wife Eva and his daughter, Liora, 18 months.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister
of Interior and Claude Guéant, French Jewish officials, socialist François
Hollande, Centrist François Bayrou and other politicians went to the Ozar
Hatorah high school. They all condemned the attack.
President of CRIF (umbrella of
Jewish organizations) Richard Prasquier insisted on the anti-Semitic
characteristic of the attack and called for reinforcing the security of Jewish
establishments.
President Sarkozy ordered
“exceptional measures of protection” in the area of Toulouse “as long as the murderer is not
arrested”, for instance and for the first time he launched the scarlet
Vigipirate Plan. Synagogues and mosques as well as religious schools will be
particularly protected by police.
President Sarkozy also announced
that a minute of silence would be observed in all French high-schools on March
20.
The day of the tragedy, Guéant,
Bayrou and Great Rabbi of France Gilles Bernheim attended a ceremony of prayers
at a Toulouse
synagogue. They participated in a march in Toulouse .
The Ozar Hatorah high school’s
synagogue hosted a ceremony in the
memory of the four victims.
The French Catholic Church expressed
its indignation; at 5:45 p.m. people collected their thoughts in silence at the
Notre-Dame de Paris.
President of CFCM -- umbrella of
Muslim organisations -- Mohammed Moussaoui expressed his solidarity with the
Jewish community.
Guéant said that the police noticed
both the same gun and the same modus
operandi in the attack against the Ozar Hatorah high-school as well as in
the killing of three French soldiers – Muslim Imad Ibn Ziaten, 30, and Mohamed
Legouad, 24, Berber-descent Catholic Abel Chennouf, 25 -- and the wounding of a
Catholic French soldier, Christian Loïc Liber, 28, in Toulouse and
Montauban, respectively on March 11 and 15, 2012.
The police wondered whether the
murderer was a serial killer, a Far-Right soldier or an Islamist. “The police
has collaborated with two expert profilers, and a psychologist. A huge police
plan was applied: one helicopter, 5 mobile units which represent 380 policemen,
120 Judiciary Police investigators. Guéant activated Secret services and
anti-terrorism service“, Dominique Lunel told me. She acts as an interface
between the government and the Jewish community.
On March 19, at 7:00 p.m., the
Jewish Consistoire organized a ceremony in the famous Parisian Nazareth
synagogue.
President Nicolas Sarkozy and his
wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy as well as members of the government, Hollande,
Ecologist Eva Joly and Cécile Duflot -- both women were shouted down because of
their anti-Israeli stances -- and many politicians attended that ceremony.
Psaulms were read.
Great Rabbi Alain Goldman said that he knew well the Monsonego and Sandler families, and evoked the Copernic attack (1980) and the Rue des Rosiers attack (1982).
President Joel Mergui expressed his sadness.
The ceremony ended by the Jewish Prayer for theFrench Republic which was modified by Great Rabbi Bernheim on Februray 2012 to include French soldiers who fight for France and its values all around the world .
Great Rabbi Alain Goldman said that he knew well the Monsonego and Sandler families, and evoked the Copernic attack (1980) and the Rue des Rosiers attack (1982).
President Joel Mergui expressed his sadness.
The ceremony ended by the Jewish Prayer for the
The Union of French Jewish Students
(UEJF) organized a silent march. Several non-Jewish organizations participated
in that march, which started at 8:00 p.m. from the Place of the Republic to the
Place of the Bastille (Paris ).
That silent march gathered 20,000 people, among them politicians. Front of Left
Leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon was
shortly shouted down because of his pro-Palestinian bias.
President Sarkozy suspended his
presidential campaign until March 21, when he attended a ceremony in the memory
of the three murdered soldiers. His socialist challenger Hollande suspended his
agenda. On Monday night, President of Front National Marine Le Pen cancelled
her participation in a TV debate while Bayrou focused his meeting on a
reflexion about the French society. Some politicians and Left organizations
suggested that President Sarkozy’s and his government’s speeches on immigration
“trivialized” the racist Far-Right which was suspected for the shooting.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and
National Security Council
spokesman Tommy Vietor
condemned that attack against Ozar Hatorah high-school, but they didn’t qualify
it as anti-Semitic.
“When we think about what happened
today in Toulouse , we remember what happened in Norway last year, we know what is happening in Syria , and we see what is happening in Gaza and other places,” European Union Foreign Policy
Chief Catherine Ashton said in Brussels (Belgium ).
Her speech was criticized by the
Israeli government and Jewish organizations. Lady Ashton later said she was misunderstood.
On March 20, the police identified
the murderer of Montauban and Toulouse
shootings: Muslim Mohamed Merah, 24, who had a double citizenship, French and
Algerian, and lived in a Toulouse
residential area.
On March 21, at about 3:00, Raid, an
elite unit police, started Merah’s Toulouse
apartment siege.
More and more information about
Merah were made public.
Toulouse-born Merah was a multi-recidivist offender. At 19, he was jailed
for thefts and other crimes, and radicalized himself in prison. He had trained
with Pakistani Taliban fighters in Afghanistan . He also travelled to Pakistan . He
was jailed in Kandahar because he had
planted bombs in 2007, but succeeded in escaping in a Taliban-led break-out in
2008.
Unemployed Merah said to a Raid
officer that he had carried out his attacks “in revenge for the deaths of Palestinian children” and in order to express his opposition to “the French
Army’s foreign interventions” and “France ’s ban on the Islamic veil” (“anti-burka
law”). The police discovered many weapons in a car which had been rented by
Merah. They arrested Mohamed Merah’s elder brother, Abdelkader Merah.
Jewish and Muslims officials stressed
that they refused to confuse Muslims with jihadists, those shootings with
Islam, as well as Islam with Islamism.
On March 21, t he four Jewish victims, who had French and Israeli citizenship, were buried in Har Hamenuchot cemetary, on the Mount of Rest, Jerusalem (Israel ).
On the morning of March 22, after a
35-hour siege, during an intense fire-fight, Raid killed self-proclaimed
Al-Qaeda “mujahidin” Mohamed
Merah while he was trying to flee his flat in a residential area of the “rose
city”.
Mohamed Merah died in accordance
with his desire: as an Islamist jihadist fighting Jews, Infidels, kouffar (or kuffār, plural of kafir ; “unbelievers” or “disbelievers”), and
traitor French Muslims -- Paratroopers Chennouf and Legouad belonged to 17th
RGP (Régiment de génie parachutiste)
which was engaged in military operations in Afghanistan ; Al-Qaeda and salafist
djihadists fight against French presence in dar
al-Islam --.
Al-Jazeera-France did not broadcast Merah's film of those shootings.
Al-Jazeera-France n' pas diffusé le film de Merah sur ces tueries.
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