‘Al Qaeda’ Killer’s Extensive Links To French Authorities
Brit Dee – Activist Post March 22, 2012
The man accused of killing seven people during recent gun attacks in Toulouse has been killed,
following a 32-hour standoff with police – as more information has come
to light about his extensive links to the French authorities.
Mohammed Merah, a self-proclaimed Al
Qaeda operative, was reportedly found dead on the ground after being
shot in the head and falling from his apartment window, following a
five-minute gun battle when police stormed the building.
Whilst French authorities claimed to
want to end the standoff peacefully and take Merah alive, the siege’s
fatal finale conveniently removes from the picture a suspect who appears
to have had a great deal of contact with both the French intelligence
services and the police – and even with the US military.
French interior minister Claude Guéant yesterday revealed that Merah had been on the radar of the DCRI – France’s domestic intelligence agency – “for years”.
It
has since transpired that Merah was questioned by the intelligence
service as recently as November 2011, after being summoned to explain
trips he had made to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Astonishingly, Merah was
reportedly granted freedom to leave
by his French intelligence questioners after providing them with
photographs supporting his claims of having merely been on an innocent
tourist holiday.
That Merah’s explanation satisfied the
intelligence service is inexplicable, considering their familiarity with
his track record of suspicious activity. Merah had reportedly made two
trips to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and whilst his attorney
Christian Etelin has denied such rumors, some have claimed he even spent
time in a Kandahar jail before escaping during a Taliban
breakout. Whilst Merah’s reported time in an Afghan jail has yet to be
established, other sources, including top French prosecutor Francois
Mollins, have stated that he was arrested by Afghan police at a
checkpoint and handed over to the US military, before being flown back to France. US military officials have claimed not to have any information regarding Merah’s alleged detention in Afghanistan.
Today saw further revelations come to
light about the French authorities’ knowledge of Merah’s violent
tendencies. A report in French newspaper Le Télégramme details
how the mother of a 15-year-old-boy claims she twice filed complaints
with the police, after Merah showed her son violent Jihadist videos and
extremist literature at his Toulouse apartment. The woman, identified by
the pseudonym Aisha, said that:
‘I am appalled. It took all these
people [to be] killed for Mohammed Merah [to be] finally stopped,’ she
said. ‘The police knew all about the danger of this individual and his
radicalism’.
Le Télégramme also reports how Merah
allegedly went into the street outside the woman’s house wearing
military fatigues, brandishing a sword, and shouting “I’m with
Al-Qaida”.
Mohammed Merah’s older brother Abdelkader was apparently also well known
to the authorities. He was arrested on suspicion of belonging to the
Knights of Pride – an extremist group against the banning of the burka
in France. It was from Adbelkader’s computer that an unsecured email was
allegedly sent to one of Mohammed’s victims, arranging to view a
motorbike – an appointment at which the paratrooper was murdered. Merah
was tracked down after the IP address and location were traced from the
email.
The French authorities’ excuses for their inability to prevent Merah’s killings are highly questionable. As Merah very much fits the profile of a classic intelligence asset – young, disaffected, and with a history of petty criminality – serious questions should be asked about whether he really just “slipped through the net”, or if in reality the intelligence services deliberately failed to prevent the attack, or even actively provocateured it.
The French authorities’ excuses for their inability to prevent Merah’s killings are highly questionable. As Merah very much fits the profile of a classic intelligence asset – young, disaffected, and with a history of petty criminality – serious questions should be asked about whether he really just “slipped through the net”, or if in reality the intelligence services deliberately failed to prevent the attack, or even actively provocateured it.
In this regard it is interesting to
note that Nikolas Sarkozy, previously trailing in the polls in a French
election year, is now the favorite to win the first round
of the presidential election next month. Sarkozy has promised a shocked
French nation that he will crack down on Islamic extremism should he be
re-elected, as well as stating that he will introduce stricter monitoring of the Internet, and make it a crime to visit unspecified “hate” websites.
This article first appeared at Resistance Radio.
Brit Dee runs an independent online
radio station called Resistance Radio, which broadcasts daily news,
views and analysis challenging the lies of our corrupt political and
financial leaders, and the controlled corporate media, at http://www.resistradio.com
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