Paying attention, AP? Last Updated: 12:56 AM, March 22, 2012 Posted: 11:35 PM, March 21, 2012
Despite early media speculation that he must have been a neo-Nazi, French police yesterday identified the gunman who methodically killed seven people — including three young children attending a Jewish day school — as a recently radicalized Islamic fundamentalist.
Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old French national of Algerian origin, bolted to a Toulouse apartment in a tense standoff with police — even as his latest victims were laid to rest in Israel.
Hey there, Associated Press: Feeling a little more forgiving of the NYPD?
Probably not, more’s the pity.
French officials said Merah is an extremist who’d recently been to Afghanistan and Pakistan, claimed to have been trained by al Qaeda and said he “wanted to avenge the Palestinian children.”
His most recent killings were sickening: Merah held 8-year-old Miriam Monsenegro by the hair as he shot her in the head, while taping the attacks with a video-cam strapped to his chest.
Earlier, he killed three French soldiers.
Merah reportedly had been under surveillance for some time. And while the French interior minister claimed that “nothing whatsoever allowed us to think he was at the point of committing a criminal act,” an official with France’s leading Jewish group said the minister admitted investigators had lost track of Merah’s whereabouts.
France being France — actually, Europe being Europe — there’s no guarantee there will ever be a credible public accounting of Merah’s crime, his motives — or whatever intelligence breakdowns may have contributed to the bloodbath.
As to that last point, there are never any guarantees when it comes to terrorism. All that can be said for certain is that the need for vigilance is, as they say, eternal.
Certainly this latest murder spree should make New Yorkers all the more appreciative of the efforts the NYPD has made to safeguard their city since 9/ll.
Yes, this has included intensive monitoring of local Muslim communities — a necessary measure that, nevertheless, has given both the AP and its fellow travelers at The New York Times night sweats.
Too bad.
For, just yesterday, the NYPD’s director of intelligence analysis, Mitchell Silber, told Congress of six recent local incidents — three previously undisclosed — involving “hostile reconnaissance” by Iranian agents.
“What we have learned has heightened our concerns,” he said.
Besides the use of Iranian diplomatic personnel, Silber cited the use of Lebanese-linked local businesses involved in activities that benefit Hezbollah.
Moreover, he added, there are “family members of Hezbollah’s political leaders or Hezbollah fighters who have been killed” in the New York area.
“The risk that Hezbollah agents from abroad would seek to leverage the local community in New York as facilitators — whether willingly or not — must be considered,” he said.
Must be anticipated, is more like it.
New York City holds some 250 Jewish day schools — every one of them a potential target.
None of which appears to be of the slightest concern to the AP.
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