Tråden om skjutningarna i Toulouse - misstänkte Mohammed Merah nu rapporterad död

The father of the al-Qaeda-inspired gunman Mohamed Merah went on a killin spree in France before being shot dead by police, has filed a murder suit in Paris, his lawyers said Monday.
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"This is a suit against unnamed persons for murder with aggravating circumstances concerning those who gave the orders at the top of the police" during the assault on Merah's flat in Toulouse, said lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre.
"You've got 300 to 400 heavily armed people and a guy shut up all alone in his apartment. That alone is enough to raise questions," said Ms Coutant-Peyre, who is part of Merah's legal team headed by Algerian lawyer Zahia Mokhtari.
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She said the family had video evidence that would be handed over to the authorities when they requested it.
Mokhtari said in April that she had proof that Merah was "liquidated", including two 20-minute videos probably filmed by Merah himself before he was shot dead.

Long War Journal:
Terroristen Mohamed Merah, som sköt en rabbin och tre elever på en judisk skola och tre franska soldater var känd som jihadist av säkerhetstjänsten sedan tre år.
Hans bror Abdelkader var instruktör hos en terroristgrupp i Egypten och både hans far och styvfar misstänktesha direkta Al Qaedakopplingar.
Mohamed Merah fanns på en lista över farliga islamister redan 2010.

Efter terrordåden försökte de franska myndigheterna bagatellisera Merahs terroristkontakter och antydde istället att han var psykiskt sjuk. Nu har man tvingats offentliggöra 23 sidor rapporter som visar att han var känd och övervakad för sin jihadism sedan tre år.
Tidskriften Connexion publicerar en sammanfattning av materialet.
Efter dådet erkände också den AQ- anslutna terrorgruppen Jund al Khilafah i Pakistan att han var medlem och utbildad av dem.

PARIS. Nya uppgifter i fransk press visar att Muhammed Merah agerade som en del av ett stort muslimskt nätverk. Samtidigt är svensk press fortsatt ointresserade av att rapportera om verkliga terrorgrupper – utan koncentrerar sig på att koppla Breivik till demokratiska SD.
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Till skillnad från terroristkollegan Breivik hade Muhammed Merah verkligen uppbackning av en omfattande infrastruktur, både i och utanför Europa. Samtalslistor visar på 1800 kontakter mellan barnamördaren Merah och 120 personer i 20 olika länder, rapporterar BBC.
Det är tidningen Le Monde som tagit del av det hemliga utredningsarbetet från underrättelsetjänsten DCRI. Där avslöjas ett mycket omfattande internationellt nätverk som Muhammed Merah deltog i. Förutom de muslimska länderna återfanns kontakter från Storbritannien, Kroatien, Ryssland, Spanien och Rumänien.

Två av Muhammed Merahs syskon hålls fortfarande i förvar på grund av misstänkt medverkan i serien av mord i Toulouse som inkluderade tre barn som avrättades på nära håll, mord som filmades av Merah.

Muhammeds bror Abdelkhader och deras syster Souad följdes redan 2009 av fransk säkerhetstjänst, innan Muhammed var aktuell som övervakningsobjekt. Även syskonen Merahs mamma misstänks ha varit involverad.

Muhammed Merah placerades 2011 under närmare bevakning efter en lång resa till Aghanistan. Detta tillsammans med en resa till en koranskola i Egypten förstärkte bilden av Muhammed som deltagare i radikala muslimska miljöer.
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De nya uppgifterna står i bjärt kontrast till den tidigare bilden av Merah som en missanpassad småbrottslig som radikaliserats på egen hand vilken snabbt fördes fram efter morden i Toulouse, säger BBC:s utsända Christian Fraser.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced yesterday that, as part of the French government’s fight against radical Islam and “global jihadism,” several radical Moslem clerics were likely to be deported from France over the coming days.

Recognising that France, in common with other European countries, was facing radicalization of both the ultra-left and ultra right Valls saw the most immediate danger as coming from radical Islam. He commented, “the most current threat is that of global jihadism,” and in passing reference to events in Mali, said, “We must root out the problem at its source.” He also expressed concerns about events in Syria, “because many young Frenchmen are engaged in a country (Syria) where they will receive combat training.”

The Minister said the Toulouse assassin, Mohamed Merah, was not a ‘lone wolf’ like Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the mass killings in Norway in July 2011, reports Le Parisien. In Toulouse, Merah killed seven people including three Jewish children before being shot dead by armed French police. Valls said, “The actions of Merah were the result of careful preparation, a learning process involving many contacts. Clearly, he was not acting alone. He carried out the killings on his own but he had travelled in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He had contacts and he lived in an environment where he undoubtedly received rudimentary weapons training.”

A jihadist website posted a new threat by al Qaeda this week that promises to conduct “shocking” attacks on the United States and the West.

The posting appeared on the Ansar al Mujahidin network Sunday and carried the headline, “Map of al Qaeda and its future strikes.”

The message, in Arabic, asks: “Where will the next strike by al Qaeda be?” A translation was obtained by Inside the Ring.

“The answer for it, in short: The coming strikes by al Qaeda, with God’s Might, will be in the heart of the land of nonbelief, America, and in France, Denmark, other countries in Europe, in the countries that helped and are helping France, and in other places that shall be named by al Qaeda at other times,” the threat states.

The attacks will be “strong, serious, alarming, earth-shattering, shocking and terrifying.”

Under a section of the post on the method of the attacks, the unidentified writer said the strikes would be “group and lone-wolf operations, in addition to the use of booby-trapped vehicles.”

“All operations will be recorded and published in due time,” the message said. “Let France be prepared, and let the helpers of France be prepared, for it is going to be a long war of attrition.”

The reference to France appears linked to the group’s plans for retaliation against the French-led military strikes in northern Mali in operations to oust al Qaeda terrorists from the North African country.

The Ansar al-Mujahidin network is a well-known jihadist forum that in the past has published reliably accurate propaganda messages from al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Brother of French jihadist killer Mohamed Merah jailed
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he brother of the French jihadist who murdered seven people in Toulouse, including three Jewish children, has been jailed for 20 years.
A court in Paris found Abdelkader Merah guilty of terrorist offences.
But he was cleared of having a direct role in the 2012 attacks, in which his younger sibling, Mohamed Merah, shot three soldiers and then three children and a teacher at a Jewish school.
The court also jailed a second suspect, Fettah Malki, 34, for 14 years.
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Abdelkader Merah, 35, had been accused of mentoring and encouraging his brother's interest in jihadism, and of helping him to steal a scooter that was used in the attack.
He denied the allegations, and his lawyers argued that he was being pursued by prosecutors because they could not put Mohammad Merah on trial.
Fettah Malki was jailed for providing Mohamed Merah with a weapon, ammunition and a bullet-proof vest.