This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5228
March 21, 2012
MIM: Mohammad Merah killed two Muslim soldiers leading police and the media to immediately conclude that the murders of Rabbi Sandler,his two sons and the daughter of the school's principal at a school in Toulouse was the work of a neo Nazi. They ignored the fact that the killing of Muslim soldiers is considered by jihadists as the same as targetting infidels. One case in point is that of a Muslim plot which was uncovered in the UK in 2007 in which Muslims planned to kidnap a Muslim soldier, behead him, and broadcast the atrocity on video.
"A man described as a "fanatic" has pleaded guilty to plotting to kidnap and kill a British Muslim soldier.
Parviz Khan, 37, an unemployed charity worker from Birmingham, intended to seize and behead the serviceman "like a pig", Leicester Crown Court was told...
"...He would be taken to a lock-up garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig," he said.
"This atrocity would be filmed... and the film released to cause panic and fear within the British armed forces and the wider public." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7215081.stm
MIM:The wish that the killer was a neo Nazi was seized upon by the media leading to a piece in the Washington Post entitled "French Jews and Muslims Grapple For Answers To School Shootings" which waxed warm and fuzzy about how both Muslims and Jews had been victims of hatred and announced that there would be a march in Paris protesting the murders with both religions taking part. Needless to say a march with Muslims and Jews showing solidarity against the murders is highly unlikely under the present circumstances.
MIM Update 3/22/12 According to Euro News the march has been cancelled but " a joint appeal by the Jewish and Islamic communities for tolerance has been issued".
Not a word of condemnation has been heard by any Muslim groups in France or elsewhere.
MIM: Excerpt from the Washington Post piece:
"France's Muslim and Jewish communities — the largest in western Europe — are organizing a silent march to mark the killings on Sunday.
"This march has no sense unless it's a joint march," Richard Prasquier, head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France.
But others fear the incidents may only deepen differences between the two faiths.
"It doesn't unite us," said Victor Levy, a Jew from North Africa who owns a stationery shop a block from Beth Hanna. "It only increases the doubts between the two communities, because each wonders if the other is racist. Little words against the other that shock, that create hatred between the two religions." http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/french-jews-and-muslims-grapple-for-answers-to-school-shootings/2012/03/20/gIQAAqfDQS_story.html
Toulouse Shooter Plans 'Discreet Surrender'
French officials say a Muslim spree shooter who killed seven plans to surrender discreetly; police appear to be gearing up for a raid.
By Gavriel Queenann
French interior minister Claude Gueant told France-2 TV that a suspect wanted for shooting seven people dead plans to turn himself in to some 300 police surrounding him, but will do it at night "to be more discreet."
Gueant's remarks came as French police were seen gearing up and making preparations to storm the Toulouse home of Mohammad Merah, who has been besieged within for more than sixteen hours.
He said Merah appeared to have acted alone in the killings, but also told police negotiators that he met al-Qaeda "chiefs" while travelling in Pakistan last year.
"We knew, and that is why he was under surveillance, that he had travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan," Gueant said, admitting the shooter was on a watch list.
Prosecutors have said Merah was a self-taught radical Salafi who had been to Afghanistan twice, and had trained in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan
Two police were wounded as they tried to arrest the 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent during a raid at about 03:00, which led to the standoff. It was originally reported three police officers were wounded in the raid.
Merah, the gunman responsible for the deadly shooting on Otzar Hatorah Jewish School in Toulouse on Monday, reportedly discussed the murders with police via telephone.
He also discussed two previous shootings since March 11 in which three French paratroopers were murdered. The paratroopers, like Merah, were of Arab extraction.
The suspect "wants to take revenge for Palestinian children" killed in the Middle East and "has various grievances with the French military," Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins, part of the anti-terrorist unit leading the investigation, told reporters in Toulouse.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/154021
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French Police Raid Home of Toulouse Murderer Three explosions heard as French police raid the home of Mohammad Merah, who is believed to be is responsible for Toulouse slayings.Gavriel Queenann & Elad Benari
After a siege which continued for more than 20 hours, police in France raided the home of the gunman believed to be behind a string of shootings including this week's attack at the Otzar HaTorah school in Toulouse.
The raid on on the home began shortly before 1:00 a.m. (Israel time) on Thursday, according to local media reports. Three explosions had reportedly been heard in the area. Kol Yisrael radio reported that police had broken into the gunman's apartment.
Earlier, the gunman - 24-year old Mohammad Merah - discussed with police negotiators the killing of three Jewish school children, a rabbi and three paratroopers in a string of shootings that began on March 11.
The raid followed hours of intensive negotiation, tactical planning and a predawn raid by police on Wednesday at a home in Toulouse, just one kilometer from Otzar HaTorah.
Hundreds of police surrounded a five-story building where Merah was holed up while emergency personnel evacuated the building using fire-ladders.
Earlier, three officers were wounded in an exchange of fire as police tried to coax the suspect out of the building. The suspect had tossed a handgun out of a window, but reportedly had other arms including an assault rifle.
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant maintained police wanted to take the man alive throughout the standoff. Gueant told reporters that the young man is a French man who identifies with al Qaeda militants.
The suspect "wants to take revenge for Palestinian children" killed in the Middle East and "has various grievances with the French military," he said.
French prosecutors said Merah, a French citizen of Algerian extraction, said he had no regrets other than having run out of time for more killings.
He has no regrets, except not having more time to kill more people and he boasts that he has brought France to its knees," Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins, part of the anti-terrorist unit leading the investigation, told reporters in Toulouse.
"He has explained that he is not suicidal, that he does not have the soul of a martyr and that he prefers to kill but to stay alive himself," Paris Prosecutor Francious Molins, a member of the task force set up after Monday's murders at Otzar HaTorah, said.
Merah, who filmed his killings with a small camera for posterity, had already identified another soldier and two police officers he wanted to kill, Molins said.
The suspect, who officials say has spent time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has reportedly referred to himself as a "mujahedeen," or holy warrior.
Over the last few days, France has maintained a high level terror alert in the southwest region as police mounted a massive manhunt for what they described as a "potential serial killer."
The first attack came on March 11 when a French paratrooper was killed in Toulouse. Two other paratroopers were killed and one injured last Thursday in the nearby town of Montauban.
It was reported all three murdered paratroopers were of Arab descent, and had been killed with the same weapon.
That incident was followed by the murders of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his sons Arieh, 5, and Gabriel, 3, and 8-year-old Myriam Monsenego at Otzar HaTorah in Toulouse.
In the paratrooper shootings, the suspect drove a motorcycle and wielded a Colt 45 firearm. Contrary to initial reports, a different weapon was used in the Jewish school shooting.
As the Toulouse raid unfolded, the bodies of the four Jewish school shooting victims arrived in Israel for burial.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/154007This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5228