Mohamed Merah, the Frenchman who assassinated three French paratroopers of North African background and then launched a terrible attack on a Jewish school—murdering a teacher, his two young sons and an 8-year-old girl—claimed to act for al Qaeda. Skeptics have dismissed the claim, saying al Qaeda barely functions anymore. But Merah was no “lone wolf” and did indeed bear the imprint of al Qaeda.
Young and alienated, Merah had served two years in a juvenile prison for robbery. Was he rejected by French society because of his Algerian background? “He snapped,” say friends. After prison, he was completely cut off from reality, said his lawyer.
In fact, Merah was practically a prince in French jihadist circles. His mother is married to the father of Sabri Essid, a leading member of the Toulouse radical milieu who was captured in Syria in 2006. Essid and another Frenchman were running an al Qaeda safe house in Syria for fighters going to Iraq. In a 2009 trial that came to be known in the press as “Brothers for Iraq,” they and six others were convicted in France of conspiracy for terrorist purposes. Essid was sentenced in 2009 to five years imprisonment.
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Check out my boss Dr. Jytte Klausen's new piece in the Wall Street Journal: "France's Jihadist Shooter Was No Lone Wolf"
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I think the article is not really balanced. A scholar should not mix the terms “al Qaeda” and “jihadism” without further explanation. It suggests to the layman-reader that al Qaeda ecquals (salafi-) jihadism as a whole which, as you know very well, is not the case. At least one should explain the different dimensions of the phenomenon “al Qaeda”: a) a real organization or “network of networks”, b) an ideological “base” for jihadis.
I find other parts to suggestive aswell:
a) It doesn’t seem to be strong argument to conclude “that he had help from a network” from the claim of a “generally efficient French police”.
b) The assertion that “Merah did everything by the jihadist textbook” is not convincing. I would rather call it “handbook for the ideological inclined serial killer in times of mass and social media”, as eg. Breivik as well claimed affiliation with some kind of network of knights trying to safe Europe, was active in racist online-forums, even wrote an +1300 page manifesto and too filmed his attack.
c) I doubt the alarmist remarks at the end of the article that it was highly scriptured and well planned. He went on to kill his victims at the school after he vainly lied in wait for the other soldier he wanted to kill; doesn’t seem well planned, disciplined and organized.
“Real al Qaeda-style” would have been an attack of catastrophic magnitude that causes mass casualties.
Deleting comments!? Not really a sign of scholarly integrity.
Oh, i am sorry, wasn’t aware that comments have to await moderation.