![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Mohammed-Merah.jpg\" "\\"Mohammed")
<\/a>The man accused of killing seven people during recent gun attacks in Toulouse <\/span>has been killed<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>, following a 32-hour standoff with police \u2013 as more information has come to light about his extensive links to the French authorities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMohammed\u00a0Merah, 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.<\/span><\/p>\n 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 \u2013 and even with the US military.<\/span><\/p>\n French interior minister\u00a0Claude Gu\u00e9ant <\/span>yesterday<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0revealed that Merah had been on the radar of the\u00a0DCRI \u2013 France’s domestic intelligence agency \u2013 “for years”.<\/span><\/p>\n 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 <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>granted freedom to leave<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a> by his French intelligence questioners after providing them with photographs supporting his claims of having merely been on an innocent tourist holiday.<\/span><\/p>\n 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\u00a0attorney Christian Etelin has denied such rumors,\u00a0some have claimed he even spent time in a Kandahar jail before escaping during a Taliban breakout.\u00a0Whilst 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 <\/span>handed over to the US military<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>, before being flown back to France. US military officials have claimed <\/span>not to have any information<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a> <\/span>regarding Merah’s alleged detention in Afghanistan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Today saw further revelations come to light about the French authorities’ knowledge of Merah’s violent tendencies. A report in French newspaper\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>Le T\u00e9l\u00e9gramme<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>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, <\/span>said that<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n ‘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’.<\/span><\/p>\n Le T\u00e9l\u00e9gramme also reports how Merah allegedly went into the street outside the woman’s house wearing military fatigues, brandishing a sword, and\u00a0shouting “I’m with Al-Qaida”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mohammed Merah’s\u00a0older brother Abdelkader was apparently also <\/span>well known<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a> 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\u00a0appointment at which the paratrooper was murdered. Merah was tracked down after the IP address and location were traced from the email. In this regard it is interesting to note that Nikolas Sarkozy, previously trailing in the polls in a French election year, is now <\/span>the favorite to win the first round<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a> 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 <\/span>stricter monitoring of the Internet<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>, and make it a crime to visit unspecified “hate” websites.<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This article first appeared at <\/span>Resistance Radio<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 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 <\/strong><\/span>http:\/\/www.resistradio.com<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe 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 \u2013 young, disaffected, and with a history of petty criminality \u2013 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.<\/span><\/p>\n