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2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings
Toulouse MontaubanLocation of Toulouse and Montauban, France
Location	Midi-Pyrénées region, France: Toulouse Montauban
Date	11 March 2012 (2012-03-11) – 22 March 2012 (2012-03-22)
Target	French soldiers and Jewish civilians
Attack type	Shootings
Deaths	8 (4 civilians, 3 soldiers, perpetrator)
Injured	5
Perpetrator	Mohammed Merah

The 2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings (also called the Toulouse shootings) were a series of three gun attacks targeting French soldiers and Jewish civilians, in the cities of Montauban and Toulouse in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France. In total, seven people were killed, plus the perpetrator, and five others were injured, four seriously.

The first attack occurred on 11 March 2012, when a Muslim French paratrooper, Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten, was shot dead outside a gym in Toulouse. The second occurred on 15 March 2012, during which two uniformed soldiers, Corporal Abel Chennouf and Private Mohamed Legouad, were killed and another seriously injured in a shopping centre in Montauban. On 19 March 2012, a further attack occurred at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school, where four people (including three children) were killed. The gunman fled on a motor scooter. After the third shooting, the French government raised Vigipirate, France's terror alert, in the Midi-Pyrénées region, and a couple of surrounding departements, to its highest possible level. The United Nations, many governments around the world, and the French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the attacks. Mohamed Merah's brother Abdelkader was arrested and charged with complicity in the killings.

Police identified the perpetrator as Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old French Muslim Merah said he was an Islamic warrior and the attacks were to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and to attack the French Army for its involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Merah filmed the killings and made a video of them set to music and readings from the Koran. Merah claimed ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda, although these claims are unproven, and doubted by French authorities. After a 30-hour siege, on 22 March 2012, Mohamed Merah was shot and killed in a gunfight with the special operations tactical unit of the French police, RAID.French intelligence have suggested Islamic radicalisation during prison, jihadist familial connections and psychiatric troubles as factors in his becoming a radical jihadist.

Attacks

The shootings were connected and were perpetrated by Mohammed Merah (see below). The authorities determined that all of the attacks involved the same weapon, a .45 pistol. In all three attacks, the helmeted shooter arrived and left on the same stolen scooter.

11 March: paratrooper in Toulouse

On 11 March, Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten, aged 30, an off-duty paratrooper in the 1st Parachute Logistics Regiment (1er régiment du train parachutiste) was killed when he was shot in the head at point-blank range outside a gym in Toulouse. At the time Ibn-Ziaten was waiting to meet someone who had claimed to be interested in buying a motorcycle from him; however, it is suspected that the supposed buyer attacked him instead. The perpetrator was described as wearing a helmet and riding a motorcycle.

The family of Ibn-Ziaten subsequently buried him in their hometown of M'diq, Morocco.

15 March: three paratroopers in Montauban

On Thursday, 15 March, at around 14:00, two uniformed soldiers were killed and a third was seriously injured outside a shopping centre in Montauban, around 50 km north of Toulouse, while withdrawing money from a cash machine. They were all from the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment (17e régiment du génie parachutiste), whose barracks are close to the town. Corporal Abel Chennouf, 24, and Private Mohamed Legouad, 23, both of North African origin, were killed. Corporal Loïc Liber, 28, from Guadeloupe, was left in a coma. The security cameras showed the killer on a powerful moped and wearing a black helmet. The killer reportedly pushed aside an elderly woman, who was waiting to withdraw money from the cash machine, while taking aim.

19 March: Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse

Background

The Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse is part of a national chain of at least twenty Jewish schools throughout France, educating children of primarily Sephardic, Middle Eastern and North African descent. The school is a middle and secondary school, with most children in the age range of 11 to 17 years, and it is also a transportation hub for other schools. Many parents bring their younger children to Ozar Hatorah, and place them on shuttle buses that travel to the other schools in the area.

Shootings

At about 8:00 AM, a man drove up to the Ozar Hatorah school on a Yamaha TMAX. He dismounted, and immediately opened fire toward the schoolyard. The first victim was a rabbi and teacher at the school who was shot outside the school gates as he tried to shield his two young sons from the gunman. The gunman shot one of the boys as he crawled away, as his father and brother lay dying on the pavement. He then walked into the schoolyard, chasing people into the building. Inside, he shot at staff, parents, and students. The killer chased a 7-year-old girl into the courtyard, caught her by her hair and raised a gun to shoot her. The gun jammed at this point and Merah changed weapons from what the police identified as a 9-mm pistol to a .45 calibre gun, and shot the girl in her temple at point-blank range. The gunman then retrieved his moped and drove off.

Police cordoned off and evacuated the area. School security was increased in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Many Jewish institutions were already under continuous protection, but as a result of this act of terrorism, streets in France that have Jewish institutions on them were closed to traffic. The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as other candidates in the presidential elections, immediately traveled to Toulouse and to the school and the election campaign was suspended. Sarkozy called for a minute of silence in all schools the following day.

Victims

Four people died: 30-year-old Rabbi Jonathan (Yonatan) Sandler; his two oldest (out of three) children Aryeh, aged 6, and Gabriel, aged 3; and the head teacher's daughter, eight-year-old Miriam Monsonego, who was shot in the head at point-blank range. Bryan Bijaoui, a 17-year-old Jewish boy, was gravely injured with wounds to the arm and the torso. It was the worst school-related attack in French history.

The bodies of all four dead were flown out on 20 March from Toulouse to Paris and subsequently from Paris to Israel, accompanied by French foreign minister Alain Juppé, where they were buried by family members at the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem. The two deceased children of Sandler were dual French-Israeli citizens, as are Sandler's widow and surviving child.

Mohammed Merah

Mohammed Merah
Born	(1988-10-10)10 October 1988 Toulouse, France
Died	22 March 2012(2012-03-22) (aged 23) Toulouse, France
Citizenship	France
Occupation	Mechanic
Organization	Al-Qaeda (disputed)
Parent(s)	Zoulika Aziri (mother) Mohamed Benalel Merah (father)

Mohammed Merah (Template:Lang-ar; 10 October 1988 – 22 March 2012) was a French citizen, born to French parents of Algerian descent.

Earlier life

Merah's parents divorced when he was five. He was raised, along with his two brothers and sisters, by his single mother in a "tough part of Toulouse". As a minor he was described as having "a violent profile from childhood and behavioural troubles".

During his youth he was arrested numerous times, mostly for petty crimes such as purse-snatching. He was first arrested in 2005 and served two short prison terms in 2007 and 2009. His convictions reportedly included thefts and driving offences. He was known to French authorities because he had traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 2008, Merah tried to commit suicide by hanging. A subsequent psychiatric report described Merah as narcissistic and suicidal. Merah was described as a polar introvert. A psychiatrist said Merah exhibited "neurotic fragility due to the departure of his father and lack of supervision on his mother's part." Merah had a history of psychological problems, and French intelligence officials have suggested he had a split personality. In 2008, he tried to join the army, but was rejected. In 2010, he went to the recruitment center of the Foreign Legion and stayed overnight, but decided to leave before he could be evaluated. French media reported that in 2010 he had forced a neighbor's boy to watch bloody videos from Afghanistan and then beat up the boy's sister after the mother intervened.

The French newspaper JDD reported Merah's friends described him as a "nice guy" who "got on well with everyone". Sometimes his friends found him devout, but other times Merah would go clubbing. A friend commented that Merah identified "more with Islam than with France" One of his friends said that Merah had been seen in a Toulouse night club three weeks before the attacks. He had also been in Geneva, Switzerland on a skiing trip with two friends a month before the attacks. He allegedly bought the GoPro video camera which he used to film the attacks, from a Fnac store in Geneva.

According to Merah's lawyer, he was sentenced to a month in prison on 24 February 2012 after driving without driver's licence, and was due before the judge again in April.

He was unemployed at the time of the shootings after having worked as a coachbuilder.

Merah had reportedly split from his wife days before the shootings,

Manhunt

The killings spurred one of the biggest manhunts in modern French history. The police erected roadblocks in Toulouse and placed extra security outside Jewish and Islamic schools across France. Because of the ethnic identities of the victims, most of whom were of Jewish or Arab descent, police initially suspected the involvement of neo-Nazis. Since he drew little attention to himself otherwise, police faced an uphill struggle in focusing in on Merah as a suspect, even as the killings continued. Merah had taken care to ensure that the magazine and shell casings he left offered no fingerprints or DNA. The search for Sergeant Ibn Ziaten's bogus motorbike buyer was homing in on the Merahs' computer, as cross-checks revealed that the Toulouse woman who owned the IP address had two sons on the anti-terrorism watchlist. The hunt for the gunman's scooter also took a decisive turn when Merah asked a motorcycle mechanic in Toulouse about removing a GPS anti-theft tracking device on his bike. Merah also said that he had just repainted the bike white.

Siege and death

Around 01:00 on 21 March 2012, Merah telephoned France 24, telling a journalist that he had filmed the murders and that he had posted the footage online. He said that he was connected with al-Qaeda and that what he had done was only the beginning. He said that he was motivated by France's ban on wearing the burqa and that "the Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine." At 03:00 local time (02:00 UTC), the French police tried to arrest Merah at his apartment on Sergent Vigné Street in the Côte Pavée neighborhood. Merah shot at the police through the door, injuring three police officers in the process.

The RAID, an elite anti-terrorist unit, surrounded the 1960s five-storey block of flats soon after. Merah was armed with an AK-47, an Uzi, and several handguns. Further weapons were found in a rented Renault Megane parked near the apartment building. The five-story building block and nearby buildings were evacuated and the police turned powerful spotlights onto Merah's building in an attempt to blind him and prevent him from observing the police operations. The electricity and gas supplies were cut off to the apartment block and the street lights in the neighbourhood were switched off. Merah exchanged a Colt 45 for a walkie-talkie which was used to communicate with the police. He told them the location of a bag containing the blood-spattered camera that he had used to film his attacks. One of Merah's brothers was arrested, and another handed himself into custody. Police found weapons and explosives in his brother's car. His mother was brought to the scene to help with negotiations, but she refused to become involved, due to her lack of influence on him. Merah informed the police that he intended to give himself up at 10:45pm. Contact was established with him at that time but Merah then said that he would not succumb without a fight and would kill policemen if necessary. In the late evening on 21 March, blasts were heard at the apartment block which were intended to intimidate the gunman into surrendering." The police blew off the window shutters with a grenade, after which two shots were heard. After that there was no response from the Merah until 11am the next day. The police continued the explosions at regular intervals, in an effort to wear Merah down. Officers did not know if Merah was alive as he did not respond to the series of explosions during the night and on Thursday morning.

At 10.30 on 22 March, the decision was taken to arrest him. Grenades were thrown into the apartment but elicited no response. A 15-strong team of specially trained officers decided to enter the flat first by the door, then using the windows whose shutters had been removed during the night. The team deployed technical devices and video equipment to inspect the different rooms. No presence was detected until a device was introduced into the bathroom. At that point the killer emerged shooting long and frequent bursts. The officers returned fire and snipers opposite attempted to neutralise him. Mohammed Merah then jumped out of the window with weapon in hand and continued to shoot. Merah was shot in the head by a police sniper, and he was found dead on the ground.

Less than one hour later it was announced to media in Toulouse that Merah was dead. Merah's death was later confirmed by President Sarkozy. Agence France-Presse reported that three police officers had been injured in the preceding gunfire, one of whom sustained "fairly serious" wounds. It was discovered that Merah had a bulletproof vest, components of Molotov cocktails and weapons parts stockpiled inside his flat.

Motivation

Some media have described Merah as an "Islamic terrorist", while other sources argue that Merah's attacks were not motivated by Islam. Ed West claimed that Merah's statement made during the murders ("you killed my brothers, I kill you"), was an expression of tribalism and not religion. Mustafa Akyol argued that Merah was not motivated by Islam and points out that Merah was seen at a nightclub the week before the shootings. He commented that one did not have to be a pious Muslim to be inspired by militant Muslim nationalism represented by Al-Qaeda.

Merah said he was an Islamic warrior and that the attacks were to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and to attack the French Army for its involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Dan Bilefsky linked Merah's anger to the unemployment and alienation of immigrants in France and said this affected his evolution into a self-styled jihadist. Rosie DiManno argued that Merah was neither motivated by religion, nor the treatment of immigrants in France, and that there was no evidence of Merah's involvement with militant groups or even a religious congregation. DiManno characterizes Merah as a sociopath who adopted a terror agenda as a cover for his pre-existing rage and who sought "posthumous grandeur."

According to Merah's lawyer, he was suffering from "psychological difficulties". His lawyer stated that Merah was abandoned by his father as a child, and there were reports that he split with by his wife days before the attacks. Bernard Squarcini, the head of DRCI (France's domestic intelligence agency), stated, "you have to go back to his broken childhood and psychiatric troubles. To carry out what he did smacks more of a medical problem and fantasy than a simple jihadist trajectory."

Merah said that his only regret was not having been able to execute more killings. Merah filmed all of the killings using a GoPro camera strapped to his body. He made a video of them set to music and verses of the Koran. (The videos were received by Al Jazeera. After a request from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Al Jazeera opted not to air the video.) Merah claimed that he had ties to Al-Qaeda, however, French authorities doubt this claim.

Reactions

The attacks were condemned by many governments around the world. The United Nations condemned the killings "in the strongest possible terms." The French Council of the Muslim Faith also condemned the attacks.

In a speech to Palestinian youths at an UNRWA event, the European Union's High Representative Baroness Ashton said, "When we think about what happened today in Toulouse, we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, and we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives." Israeli ministers harshly criticised her comparison of the Toulouse murders to the situation in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "It is unthinkable to compare a massacre and the Israeli army's surgical, defensive actions against those who use children as human shields." Lady Ashton said that the press reporting of her speech was "grossly distorted" and that had she also referenced Israeli victims in Sderot, but this had been incorrectly omitted from the original transcript.

The Palestinian Authority also condemned the attacks as "racist crimes". Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, said terrorists must stop trying to justify their acts of violence "in the name of Palestine."

Reactions in French society

Many Jewish children in France were afraid to go to school after the shootings, and Jewish teenagers reported fears of dressing in a recognisably Jewish manner. Some Israeli politicians called on French Jews to emigrate to Israel to escape the anti-Semitism in France.

A number of French media questioned the role of the security services during the operation and whether more could have been done to prevent the killings. French counter-terrorism expert Christian Prouteau criticized the siege operation, saying tear gas might have been used to capture Merah alive, and reduce the chance he could attack police.

Following Merah's death, an English teacher from Rouen asked her students for a moment of silence and called Merah a "victim". Most of the students immediately left the classroom and wrote to the director. Only when the students began to leave and remonstrate did the teacher appear to back down, saying that she was "not feeling too well" and would "perhaps take some time off." A representative of teachers union SGEN-CFDT said she was weak and had health concerns and immediately regretted what she said. A school spokesman said what had happened was a "sad incident" and a disciplinary procedure was under way. The teacher was suspended a few days later at the request of French education minister Luc Chatel, who said he "condemned this unspeakable behaviour without reservation".

Rallies

On 19 March, several thousand people marched silently in Paris in memory of the victims of the shootings. On 24 March, hundreds of people gathered in Lyon and Rouen, to pay tribute to the victims in silent marches. Many held signs saying "We will never forget". In Toulouse, 6000 people marched on 25 March, including mayor Pierre Cohen, Grand Rabbi of France Gilles Bernheim and Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam at Drancy.

Small demonstrations honouring Merah were held on housing estates, including the Toulouse one where he grew up. A small rally of around 30 people was held in Toulouse in tribute of Merah and was dispersed by French police. Most protesters were young women wearing the burka, which is banned in France. Several people acquainted with the killer attempted to leave flowers outside his flat. Member of the group said this was a gesture to restore dignity to the Muslim community of Toulouse and to the gunman’s family, and was not an attempt to vindicate Merah, while others said that they did not wish to judge him harshly and that the vilification of Merah was unfair. The New York Times quoted Pierre Cohen, the mayor of Toulouse stating that rumours of Muslims organizing a demonstration for Merah were "false". Graffiti on the walls in Toulouse reads "Viva Merah" and "Fuck the kippa".

Aftermath

Possible accomplice

Mohamed Merah's brother Abdelkader Merah, aged 29, was detained after the death of his brother and faces preliminary charges of complicity in murder and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism. Investigators believe that he may have assisted Mohamed with the preparation of the killings. Abdelkader's lawyer denied these allegations, saying that press reports that Abdelkader expressed pride in his brother's acts were false, and that he had not been aware of Mohamed's plans.

Internet law proposal

President Sarkozy proposed a new law that would imprison those who repeatedly visit websites promoting terror or hatred. According to The Times of India, legal experts are concerned that such a law could curtail freedom of speech. Reporters Without Borders accused Sarkozy of trying to create an internet surveillance system.

Further attacks

On March 26, a 12-year-old boy was hit and punched in the back of his head as he left his Ozar Hatorah school in Paris "by youths reciting anti-Semitic slogans". Jewish graves have been vandalised in Nice, France. The Daily Mail reported that such vandalisms had occurred across France. Police are investigating email and telephone threats received by staff at the school in the days following the attacks.

Fears of backlash

In the aftermath, many French Muslims feared the stigmatization of the Muslim community, and an increase in Islamophobia. President Sarkozy also warned against stigmatizing millions of French Muslims because of the actions of a single extremist.

See also

• List of massacres in France
• Anti-Semitism in 21st century France

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External links

• Shootings in Toulouse and Montauban: What we know at BBC News Online
• Toulouse shootings: a timeline of events at The Guardian
• Toulouse shootings collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Toulouse shootings collected news and commentary at France 24
• Mohammed Merah and Abdelkader Merah (Shootings in Toulouse, France) collected news and commentary at The New York Times

• Use dmy dates from March 2012
• 2012 in France
• Antisemitic attacks and incidents
• Antisemitism in France
• Deaths by firearm in France
• History of Midi-Pyrénées
• History of Toulouse
• Islamist terrorism in France
• Mass murder in 2012
• Massacres in France
• Murdered Israeli children
• Spree shootings
• Terrorist incidents in 2012