Four Dead After French School Shooting

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16191704

A teacher and three children have been killed in a shooting outside a Jewish school in France in the third attack by a gunman riding a motorbike this month.

The shooter, who had at least two weapons, opened fire at the Ozar Hatorah school in Jolimont, Toulouse, at just after 8am as pupils were arriving.
A religious education teacher, aged 30, and children aged three, six and 10 were killed. Witnesses said the daughter of the school's director was also seriously injured.
Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said the teacher was shot outside the school before the gunman entered the grounds, where he started spraying bullets.
"A man arrived in front of the school on a motorcycle or scooter. He shot at everything he could see, children and adults. Some children were chased into the school," he said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is now at the school, described the attack as an "abominable drama" and a "frightening tragedy".

It comes days after two similar shootings in the same region, in which three soldiers were killed by a gunman wearing black and riding a scooter.
On March 11, a 30-year-old non-commissioned officer dressed in civilian clothes was shot at point-blank range by an assailant using a 9mm gun.



Forensics at work at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse
Four days later, two paratroopers were killed and another seriously injured at a cash machine outside their barracks in Montauban around 30 miles (50km) from Toulouse.
Witnesses said the motorcyclist walked up to the men, who were in uniform but unarmed, and opened fire at point blank range.
He apparently had time to turn over one of the wounded men who was trying to crawl away and fire three more shots before returning to his scooter and fleeing.
Police forensic experts said on Friday that the same pistol was used in both attacks and officers have said the same calibre weapon was used at the school.

Before the third attack, a major manhunt was already under way and between 50 and 60 police officers including anti-terrorist specialists were working on the investigation.
Senior military officials have also instructed troops based in the region not to wear their uniforms outside barracks.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said there is no evidence yet to suggest the soldiers had been killed because of their service in Afghanistan.
After Monday's tragedy, France initially ordered security to be tightened around all of its Jewish schools. Within hours, it widened the move to include all religious buildings.
The three investigations have now been taken over by Parisian authorities.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said: "Paris prosecutors have taken over three probes into murder and attempted murder carried out as part of a terrorist enterprise."
Israel's foreign ministry said it was "horrified" by the shooting. Spokesman Yigal Palmor said: "We trust the French authorities to shed full light on this tragedy and bring the perpetrators of these murders to justice."



Sky's defence and security editor Sam Kiley said there was a clear pattern despite the shift from attacking the military to Jewish targets.
He said: "All of these shootings have been in the Toulouse area. Police have already made that connection. They have sent down counter-terrorist specialists.


"They will be focusing their attention on Islamic groups and on the weapon being used, which given these are quick drive-by shootings is likely to be an Uzi or a Scorpion - a small machine-gun with very high, rapid fire."
Interior minister Claude Gueant was set to visit the school later and France's grand rabbi Gilles Bernheim was also en route.
Mr Geant said: "One can't fail to notice the similarities between the attacks on our troops in Toulouse and in Montauban and then this horrible attack on children this morning."
But Mr Sarkozy added: "There are some similarities but it's much too early to say if there is a real link or not. Only the police and the judiciary will tell us what conclusions to draw."

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What kind of cowardly piece of sh*t kills children?

And it does seem suspiciously like a pattern of terrorist attacks - though no doubt Brown will say the scumbag is just having a midlife crisis.

The same kind that kills over 70 teenagers on a Norwegian island. Or bombs hospitals and orphanages containing his own people. Human feelings and care for our kind seems to be fast disappearing. Even the lowest of the animal kingdom (and I don't include humans) nurture and care for their own. But man is, however as we know to our cost, the only member of that kingdom that actually preys on its own kind for hatred, revenge, greed, so-called honor etc. LL

Agree, LL, and racism has been a running sore in Europe for centuries.

I personally don't think care for our fellow humans is being lost; if anything, we are more compassionate than in the past.

The murders of these children and their teacher is causing outrage; you don't need to go too far back to a time when crimes like that would have won approval.

Toulouse shootings: police arrest suspect and corner another in raid
Two officers wounded in shoot-out during early morning swoop to arrest Jewish school shooting suspects, say sources

Angelique Chrisafis in Toulouse and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 March 2012 06.23 GMT

A man has been arrested over the Toulouse shootings and another is engaged in an armed stand-off with police. Two officers were injured in a shoot-out during the swoop on a house in Toulouse on Wednesday morning, police said.

Reports quoted police as saying the 24-year-old they arrested had told them he wanted to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children. He was described as a French national with an Algerian mother. The other suspect is reported to be his brother.

Heavily armed police in bullet-proof vests and helmets cordoned off the residential area where the raid was taking place. Witnesses at the scene heard several shots at about 3.40am local time.

The French interior minister, Claude Guéant, said in Toulouse that the suspect "talks a lot" and was communicating with police officers through his front door, talking a lot about his "engagements" with al-Qaida. The man's mother had been taken to the location and asked to reason with him, but she said she didn't want to, saying she had "no influence over him".

Gueant said the man claimed to be a mujahedeen belonging to al-Qaida who wanted to "avenge the deaths of Palestinian children" and at the same time "attack the French army for its interventions abroad". There had been an exchange of gunfire with police and two officers had sustained minor injuries in the operation.

Gueant said the suspect had links to people who described themselves as "Salafist or jihadist" and that he had in the past made trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Police were trying to establish a better line of communication with him.

One man who lived on the same block said he always said hello to the suspect in the past if he saw him on the stairwell but didn't know his name. He described him as appearing just a "normal" guy. He said he hadn't bumped into him for months.

The French news channel BFM TV said the suspect was linked to an Islamist group that it identified as Forsane Alizza but it was not immediately possible to confirm this.

Authorities believe the gunman in Monday's school shooting was the same person responsible for killing three soldiers of North African origin in two shootings last week in Toulouse and the nearby town of Montauban.

A third soldier, of Caribbean origin, remains in a coma.

The same Colt 45 handgun was used in all three attacks and in each case the gunman arrived on a Yamaha scooter with his face hidden by a motorcycle helmet.

The killings come five weeks before the first round of France's presidential elections in which immigration and Islam have been major themes as President Nicolas Sarkozy seeks to win over voters from far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

IF correct, that suggests that the arrested man may have regarded the soldiers as 'traitors'?

And has Brown appeared yet to announce that he isn't a terrorist, just a bit fed up?

A Nazi Faction in France has been targeting Jews for years, and not a lot has been done by past Governments, who only seriously began to apologise for their part in The Holocaust recently.
But they have bitten off a bit more than they can chew with Nicholas Sarkozy who is a Jew himself.
God forbid that Marine le Pen should win the election. She is an able politician but her attitude is twisted by the bigotry of her Father, and The French do know this.

Francois Holland is the only serious threat to Nicholas Sarkozy.

But they have bitten off a bit more than they can chew with Nicholas Sarkozy who is a Jew himself.

He's not Jewish, his mother was half Greek Jewish and half French Catholic, his father a Hungarian Catholic and he was raised a Catholic. LL

Lamplighter wrote:

But they have bitten off a bit more than they can chew with Nicholas Sarkozy who is a Jew himself.

He's not Jewish, his mother was half Greek Jewish and half French Catholic, his father a Hungarian Catholic and he was raised a Catholic. LL

I beg to disagree, LL. I have seen photos of him wearing a Yalmulke.

I have also read that he is Jewish. If his mother's mother was Jewish, then so is he.

Sabot wrote:

Lamplighter wrote:

But they have bitten off a bit more than they can chew with Nicholas Sarkozy who is a Jew himself.

He's not Jewish, his mother was half Greek Jewish and half French Catholic, his father a Hungarian Catholic and he was raised a Catholic. LL

I beg to disagree, LL. I have seen photos of him wearing a Yalmulke.

I have worn a yarmulka and I am not Jewish. One wears it as a mark of respect to cover ones head on special occasions, I wore one at a friend's wedding. He may have sympathies with the Jewish people; I would expect that as he has Jewish blood, but he was brought up a Catholic which I understand to mean that he was baptised and confirmed into that faith. He is not a practising Jew, but a practising RC. Also it is his mother who is half Jewish, maybe her father was? LL

Goyim often wear yalmulkes to certain Jewish functions when other males have their heads covered.

It was the one half Jewish part that interested me so I looked.

He is not Jewish unless he has converted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_history_of_Nicolas_Sarkozy

lily wrote:Goyim often wear yalmulkes to certain Jewish functions when other males have their heads covered.

It was the one half Jewish part that interested me so I looked.

He is not Jewish unless he has converted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_history_of_Nicolas_Sarkozy

With the somewhat ambivalent attitude of the French to Jews on occasions I am sure the far right would have trumpeted up that France had a Jew for a President, don't you think? Can you imagine how Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter would have used that as a rod to beat Sarkosy with? LL

The Nazis would not have made that distinction, Lily. And obviously didn't with other members of his family.
My actual point was that Nicholas Sarkozy will know more about prejudice than most, especially against The Jews.

Gotcha, Sabot.

My half brother is a Jew by virtue of my stepmother being half Jewish. And as I understand things Judaism is more a state of mind than a religion. It is an identity and stays with them for all their lives whether they are practicing Jews or not.
And I do have great sympathy because I saw the fear that my stepmother had for herself and her son. She knew what would have happened to them both if Hitler had prevailed.

According to Sky's Breaking News banner, the assault on the apartment block the alleged killer is in, has begun.

Al Jazeera Europe:

Sustained heavy gunfire at French siege site
Suspected gunman reported killed after heavy gunfire heard as officers moved into apartment after day-long siege.
Last Modified: 22 Mar 2012 10:51

Sustained heavy gunfire has been heard at an apartment building in the French city of Toulouse where a man suspected of killing seven people has been engaged in an armed standoff with police.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Toulouse, said she had heard "many bursts of gunfire was heard in the flat."

The gunfire lasted for several minutes and then stopped, she said. Police sources told the AFP news agency the suspect had resisted police and was now dead.

Police sources confirmed that an assault took place to enter the apartment after a siege which has lasted for more than 30 hours.

More loud explosions again shook the neighbourhood on Thursday, following similar blasts late on Wednesday in what the French interior ministry said were efforts to intimidate the suspect, named by police as Mohamed Merah, who has reportedly claimed responsibility for the killings of French soldiers, a rabbi and three children.

The suspect is thought to be armed with an assault rifle, a submachine pistol and a collection of handguns, and ministry officials said there had been no attempt so far to confront or detain him.

Rain poured down on police, firemen, media and around a dozen bystanders who spent the night outside the apartment.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Toulouse, said the use of explosives appeared to have been an effort to put the suspect under added psychological pressure intended to convince him to surrender himself.

"The police and authorities want to deprive him of sleep and put him under much stress as possible so he'll surrender or they can move in," our correspondent said.

"They want him alive, they want to put him on trial; also they want to question him on whether he has any others associates."

Francois Molins, France's top anti-terrorism prosecutor, said on Wednesday that Merah had been planning another attack, prompting a major police raid on his apartment.

'No regrets'

"He has no regrets, except not having more time to kill more people. And he boasts that he has brought France to its knees," Molins, part of the anti-terrorist unit leading the investigation, told a news conference.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy who is running for re-election in five weeks time, has paid homage to the soldiers killed by the gunman. He said that the three French soldiers killed last week were victims of a "terrorist execution".

Speaking at a memorial service for the soldiers in Montauban, Sarkozy said that "terrorism will not break [the] country, and the country must not give in to revenge".

Sarkozy, who also visited the scene of the siege, said the killer had wanted to "bring France to its knees", but had failed, and said the attacker would likewise fail in his attempt to divide the country.

'Al-Qaeda links'

Speaking to journalists, Gueant said the suspect was a French citizen with links to al-Qaeda.

He said the suspect wanted to "take revenge for Palestinian children" killed in the Middle East, and was angry at the French military for its operations abroad.


The funerals of the rabbi and three children killed on Monday have been held in Jerusalem [REUTERS]
Gueant further added that the man's brother was arrested and that he was known to authorities for having spent time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The raid came as three Jewish children and a rabbi killed outside the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse were buried in Israel.

Jonathan Sandler, a 30-year-old Frenchman, his two sons, five-year-old Arieh and four-year-old Gabriel, as well as seven-year-old Myriam Monsonego, were buried at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem.

French police on Monday launched a huge manhunt after the school shootings, and the Midi-Pyrenees region was put on its highest level of security alert.

Police said that the same weapon and the same stolen scooter appeared to have been used in both the school attack and two other attacks that left three soldiers dead.

Thanks for the update, LL.


"He has no regrets, except not having more time to kill more people. And he boasts that he has brought France to its knees," Molins, part of the anti-terrorist unit leading the investigation, told a news conference.

I'm just waiting for Brown to announce that he wasn't a terrorist, he was just having a mid-life crisis.

bb1 wrote:Thanks for the update, LL.


"He has no regrets, except not having more time to kill more people. And he boasts that he has brought France to its knees," Molins, part of the anti-terrorist unit leading the investigation, told a news conference.

I'm just waiting for Brown to announce that he wasn't a terrorist, he was just having a mid-life crisis.

Just confirmed on AlJazeera, he is dead. Pity they didn't take himn alovce, which the Justice Minister instructed the police so to do; now he can be called a 'martyr' by his fellow killers. LL

I know what you mean, LL, but I do feel there is a downside to taking them alive, it means they get to use the courts as platforms, and their little chums have a nasty habit of taking hostages, etc., to make the courts do as they want.

That is why I couldn't get too bothered about Bin Laden and Gaddafi's hasty departure from this world; it was unfortunate in some ways, but it stopped the horrible mass murderers from being used as rallying points, if that makes sense....

I suspect that this is what he wanted to happen, in which case good riddance. France is well versed in this sort of carry on, so I won't be losing any sleep about reprisals. Or him.

Latest from AlJazeera is that he tried to escape through a window and fell to his death while still firing at the SWAT team.

Oh yes...they shot the leader of the gang that tried to assassinate De Gaulle, didn't they? After a trial, I hasten to add....

Lamplighter wrote:Latest from AlJazeera is that he tried to escape through a window and fell to his death while still firing at the SWAT team.

That was handy, wasn't it?