From the Battlefields of Afghanistan to the Schoolyards of France…

Death arrived on a cold Monday morning in the south-western French city of Toulouse. The town was still in shock following the murder of Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten, a soldier in the Armée de Terre (French Army) on 11th March. Four days later Corporal Abel Chennouf and Private Mohamed Legouad were gunned down in the city of Montauban to the north of Toulouse, while Corporal Loic Liber was left in a coma. Then, on 19th March at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, Rabbi Jonathon Sandler and two of his children; six-year old Aryeh and three-year old Gabriel along with Miriam Monsonego, aged eight and the daughter of the school’s headmaster were slain. Bryan Bijaoui, a 17-year old boy, also sustained serious injuries in the attack. The nightmare finally came to an end on the morning of 22nd March when Mohammed Merah, a 22 year old French citizen who had admitted to the killings, died with a gunshot to his head from a French police sniper.

Merah claimed that his murderous actions were in revenge for the deployment of French troops in Afghanistan, and in retaliation for the deaths of Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.