President Macron and Israeli head of condition Isaac Herzog are predicted in Toulouse on March 20 to spend tribute to the 7 victims killed all through the terrorist attacks of March 11, 15 and 19, 2012 in Toulouse and Montauban. 10 years immediately after these bloody assaults, have we acquired all the classes about the potential risks of religious radicalization?
March 2012 – March 2022. Ten many years after the initially Islamic terrorist assaults of the modern day era, fully commited on French soil, in Toulouse and Montauban, involving 11 and 19 March 2012, heads of condition and former ministers must shell out tribute to the seven victims (a few Jewish children, a instructor and three soldiers) killed by the scooter killer, Mohammed Merah, in the title of religious fanaticism.
Although commemorations are planned for Sunday 20 March, in Toulouse, which will carry collectively the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, his predecessors, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, as effectively as the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, The Midi Enter dedicates, every working day, until 21 March, a series of article content to this bloody episode that stunned all of France and much past.
These assaults would also open up a extended chapter of terror and make much more waves of jihadist attacks in France (Charlie Hebdo, the Stade de France, the Parisian terraces, the Bataclan, Pleasant, St-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Magnanville, and many others.). With the similar nagging problem: how could you not be in a position to detect these perilous profiles in time? Merah’s crimes will not escape controversy. Nowadays and in hindsight, intelligence specialists and lawful actors realize this: “We were being naive.”
“You kill my brothers, I kill you”
Involving horror and amazement, France and the West have become, due to the fact 2012, the concentrate on of anti-Semitic spiritual fanatics who, in the identify of a misguided Islam, want to reign terror above the democracies of the Aged Continent, thanks to the institution of a caliphate in Syria in the 2014. It is from this ideological springboard that young radicalized French jihadists will line up, ready to eliminate harmless men and women in their region, in the title of Allah. The most radical amid them are then “programmed”, declaring to be Daesh, to just take up arms and get revenge on Western and American assaults in Syria or Iraq. It was in Toulouse on 11 March 2012 that every little thing adjusted.
This Sunday afternoon, in the metropolis of Hers in Toulouse, in front of a gymnasium, a police patrol discovers the overall body of a younger 30-yr-outdated soldier, shot in the head. Imad Ibn Ziaten, non-commissioned officer of the 1is the parachute prepare regiment, stationed in Francazal, had an appointment with a likely customer to promote his motorbike, a Suzuki Bandit 650.
The soldier, in basic dresses that day, experienced posted an advert on the Leboncoin web page. We will locate out later that the killer desired him to lie on his tummy. What he always refused. “Are you a soldier? Are you a soldier?” he insists, beneath fire. After finishing it, he concludes: “You destroy my brothers, I destroy you.”
The coolness of the killer scooter
4 days afterwards, on March 15th, soon after 2 pm, three troopers from the 17thAnd The Montauban Regiment of Paratroop Engineers is specific in front of their barracks although withdrawing money from an ATM. An individual dressed in black and carrying a visor helmet gets off his scooter. He opened hearth on the 3 troopers. Mohamed Legouad, 24, and Abel Chennouf, 25, were executed in chilly blood. The 3rd, Loïc Liber, 28, shot in the back, is accomplishing miraculously. He is now quadriplegic.
The killer leaves on his scooter shouting “Allah Akbar!”. 11.43 caliber pistol shells have been located on the floor at the scene of the crime. It is the very same weapon made use of through the 1st assassination, in Toulouse, of a 45 ACP foal. In Montauban, the initially witnesses are paralyzed by the intense violence of a killer whose relieve in dealing with a highly effective scooter leaves us perplexed. The keep track of on the considerably correct has superior. Counter-terrorism is looking at these two attacks with a eager eye, remaining in the background. The judicial law enforcement of Toulouse are continuing their investigations.
Carnage at the Jewish faculty of Ozar Hatorah
On March 19, the carnage of the Jewish school, rue Dalou in Toulouse, will give a further dimension to this tale. At 7:57 am, a gunman parked his scooter in close proximity to the Ozar Hatorah Jewish faculty. Raindrops slide with the coolness of the end of a lingering winter season.
In this confessional college which also houses a synagogue, absolutely everyone is aware each other. Among the the 200 schoolchildren, faculty and superior college students arrive from distinct regions due to the household environment that reigns there. Let us discuss about peace, let’s guidance fraternity. In front of the gate, the killer opens fire with a jammed machine gun. A weapon presented to him, a handful of days earlier, by Fettah Malki, a thug and receiver of the Izards who realized almost nothing of Merah’s terrorist tasks.
Victims of the Ozar Hatorah university.
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Then, armed with a gun, the killer scooter kills two young children and their father: Arieh, 5, Gabriel, 4, and Jonathan Sandler, 30. The terrorist breaks into the schoolyard, chases one more female, Myriam Monsonego, 7 yrs old. , daughter of the director. For the duration of this war scene, she shoots him in cold blood with a bullet in the head. In her purse we uncover her pink tutu and her ballet flats. In the murder, a 17-yr-aged boy, Brian Bijaoui, was wounded in the chest.
In Toulouse, a wind of developing psychosis rises
In fewer than 40 seconds, the terrorist shakes Toulouse and the complete globe in the horror of an unspeakable criminal offense. The presidential elections are approaching. Nicolas Sarkozy is taking part in his re-election. He goes to Ozar Hatorah’s college a number of hours right after the massacre. The pungent odor of the powder is however persistent. His rival, François Hollande, is also keeping with the wounded family members. In this devastated college yard, the realm of murdered innocence, the wounded and witnesses are annihilated.
Politicians guarantee: every little thing is completed to quit the killer. The Minister of the Inside, Claude Guéant, was ordered to keep on being in Toulouse, “right up until the case is solved”. In Toulouse, just about every rumble of a scooter motor is now suspect. A wind of psychosis rises in crescendo.
Nicolas Sarkozy, then President of the Republic, at the Ozar Hatorah faculty.
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The investigation entrusted to counter-terrorism with the assistance of the judicial police tends to make a qualitative leap. Very immediately, the trace of Mohammed Merah appeared in the eyes of the investigators. Hailing from the district of Izards, this 23-year-previous hyper-violent thug radicalized with his brother Abdlekader and subsequent his various journeys to Waziristan, a tribal place amongst Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Its identify dates back to two crucial factors: a bike vendor announces the presence of Merah in his shop to the investigators of the judicial law enforcement of Toulouse at the starting of March. A single of the brothers desired to know how to disassemble the tracker (a plotter for finding vehicle actions) on a T-Max scooter. The exact product applied in all three crime scenes. An additional decisive clue: the final results of the connections, on the Leboncoin announcement posted by the to start with soldier killed, direct investigators in the direction of the traces of these two radicalized brothers. The crossing of these two tracks prospects to the jihadist from Toulouse, a lover of pace and two wheels.
A letter of protest to Al Jazeera
Every thing is accelerating. Mohammed Merah is located on rue du Sergent-Vignié, in the Côte-Pavée district of Toulouse. He leaves his household, escaping the vigilance of the solution service agents stationed around his apartment. Then, he comes back to his household following producing a cell phone phone in a phone booth. In certain, he contacts the pan-Arab television channel, Al Jazeera, which will obtain the video of the murders filmed accompanied by a letter of protest.
In entrance of his doorway, among the ground flooring and the initial ground, the Raid law enforcement start out extended several hours of negotiations to obtain his surrender. But these elite law enforcement officers immediately comprehend that public enemy quantity 1 is no mere entrenched home fanatic. He would like to die with his arms in his hand.
The Raid Staff soon after neutralizing Mohammed Merah.
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On March 22, about 11:30 am, Mohammed Merah was neutralized though seeking to shoot police. Soon before this closing assault, after extra than 30 several hours of talks, the scooter killer acknowledges all of his premeditated crimes. During his chilling confession, he tells an intelligence officer that he was performing on behalf of Al-Qaeda.
At the similar time, his brother, Abdlekader Merah, a radical Islamist in the S file, was arrested at his house in Auterive, south of Toulouse. An ideologue who desires of becoming an emir, this admirer of Bin Laden is accused of “complicity in murder, association of criminals in relation to a terrorist organization”. He was with his brother on March 6, 2012, when the latter stole the Yamaha T-Max 530 scooter, parked in entrance of a garage, Fondeyre industrial location, Toulouse. It was this scooter that was used in the 3 attacks.
Fettah Malki, the man who equipped Mohammed Merah’s submachine gun, was arrested and jailed in 2013. Abdelkader Merah was eventually sentenced to 30 a long time in jail right before the Paris Distinctive Assize Courtroom in 2019. Fettah Malki, that he himself was not a terrorist, he was sentenced to 10 decades in jail.
The judicial epitome of an remarkable party, the Merah affair has had significant effects in the corporation of the police and intelligence providers dependable for the surveillance of radicalized people today. The “naivety” of ahead of 2012 offers way, today, to a profound transform in computer software in terms of exchanges of intelligence and detection of risk profiles.
Abdelkader Merah is arrested, March 19, 2012.
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