‘Toulouse gunman had visited IsraHell

NOVANEWS

–ed note–for the moment, barring some new information otherwise, we are going to accept this at its face value, that it was a desperate act on the part of an individual who had grown sick and tired of seeing his fellow Muslims being murdered by Israel with impunity.

HOWEVER, the news that he visited Israel is extremely interesting, given the difficulty that people of his background face when trying to enter the Jewish state. Individuals extremely less problematic have far greater difficulty getting into the country, so how did he?

And so, given current realities, we are forced to ask a few questions–

Did Israel do to him what she does to those in Gaza seeking medical help, offering to give them the assistence they need if they agree to be a snitch for Israel?

Did Israel kidnap one of this young man’s loved ones and threaten to torture and/or kill this loved one if things didn’t go according to plan?

Did they put/find him in a compromising position such as an illicit love affair, (perhaps with another man?) and threaten to go public with it, offering him an option–’You can be remembered as having died a martyr for the cause or risk being killed by your own when we make this embrassing secret known?

Given Israel’s history of playing dirty tricks, unfortunately the rest of the sane world no longer has the luxury of just accepting things at face value and must consider questions such as the aforementioned. 

 

jpost.com

Le Monde’ reports Israeli stamps in killer’s passports; purpose of trip unclear; shot to head kills Merah as he climbs through window and topples to ground, according to police and prosecutors.

French gunman Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers and four Jews in France in the last two weeks, had been on a trip to Israel in the past, France’s Le Monde newspaper reported Thursday.

According to the report, Merah’s passport had Israeli stamps in it. The purpose of his visit is not known, but analysts suspect he was either trying to visit the Palestinian territories or do reconnaissance to plan a terror attack.

Based on the stamps in his passports, Merah also visited Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Afghanistan.

The 23-year-old gunman who said al-Qaida inspired him to kill seven people in France died from a gunshot wound to the head on Thursday as he scrambled out of a ground-floor window during a gunbattle with elite police commandos.

Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, died in a hail of bullets at the end of a 30-hour standoff with police at his apartment in southern France and after confessing to killing three soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi.

He was firing frantically at police from a Colt 45 pistol as he climbed through his apartment window onto a verandah and toppled to the ground some 5 feet (1.5 meters) below, in a suburb of the city of Toulouse, according to prosecutors and police.

Two police commandos were injured in the operation – a dramatic climax to a siege which riveted the world after the killings shook France a month before a presidential election.

“At the moment when a video probe was sent into the bathroom, the killer came out of the bathroom, firing with extreme violence,” Interior Minister Claude Gueant told reporters at the scene.

“In the end, Mohamed Merah jumped from the window with his gun in his hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground.”

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Merah had taken refuge in his bathroom, wearing a bullet-proof vest under his traditional black djellaba robe, as elite police blasted his flat through the night with flash grenades.

Police investigators were working to establish whether Merah had worked alone or with accomplices, Molins said, adding that Merah had filmed his three shooting attacks with a camera hung from his body and had indicated that he had posted clips online.

The most disturbing image of the attacks showed him grabbing a young girl at a Jewish school on Monday by the hair and shooting her in the head before escaping on a scooter.

The killings have raised questions about whether there were intelligence failures, what the attacks mean for social cohesion and race relations in France and how the aftermath will affect President Nicolas Sarkozy’s slim chances of re-election.

Sarkozy called Merah’s killings terrorist attacks and announced a crackdown on people following extremist websites.

“From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished,” he said in a statement. “France will not tolerate ideological indoctrination on its soil.”

Elite RAID commandos had been in a standoff since the early hours of Wednesday with Merah, periodically firing shots or deploying small explosives until mid-morning on Thursday to try and tire out the gunman so he could be captured.

Surrounded by some 300 police, Merah had been silent and motionless for 12 hours when the commandos opted to go inside.

Initially, he had fired through his front door at police when they swooped on his flat on Wednesday morning, but later he negotiated with police, promising to give himself up and saying he did not want to die.

By late Wednesday evening, he changed tack again, telling negotiators he wanted to die “like a Mujahideen”, weapon in hand, and would not go to prison, Molins said.

“If it’s me (who dies), too bad, I will go to paradise. If it’s you, too bad for you,” Molins quoted Merah as saying.

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