Toulouse shootings: Hunt for ‘Islamic extremists’ begins in France

Sarkozy: Are there other Merahs?

President Nicolas Sarkozy, in mid-campaign for re-election, said Monday French security services would launch a hunt for Islamic extremists following the killing spree by an Islamist gunman.
Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old who claimed he had links to Al-Qaeda and was killed Thursday in a stand-off with police in Toulouse, killed seven people including three Jewish children in the attacks in southwestern France.
"Are there other Merahs? All the security, intelligence and police services in democratic countries are on the lookout," Sarkozy told France Info radio.
He said the interior and justice ministries have been ordered to engage in a systematic evaluation of potential threats.
On Sunday, authorities charged the gunman's brother, 29-year-old Abdelkader Merah, with complicity in the attacks but he denied any involvement.
French security services have come under fire for not preventing the three shooting sprees, which saw the killings of three off-duty French soldiers and three children and a teacher at Jewish school.
The attacks have also pushed security issues up the agenda in the midst of a heated campaign for France's April-May presidential election.
Merah said he had received training in Pakistan and Afghanistan and he had been on a US "terror blacklist" banning him from US-bound flights after he was arrested in Afghanistan and sent back to France.
The director general of the French national police, Frederic Pechenard, defended security services Monday, saying it was easier to criticise in hindsight.
"It's easy now, when we have the killer's name, to look back. It's a bit like the lottery: it's easy to have the six numbers in order after the fact," he told RTL radio.
He said police were facing a daunting task in evaluating the risks of other potential extremists.
"There are hundreds of young French people who go to Egypt, to Yemen, to Pakistan to study the Koran... who are nothing more than religious," he said.
"Amid these hundreds of people are a few potential terrorists whom we need to work on."
Sarkozy also said Monday that France had barred influential Qatar-based Sunni Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi from visiting the country.
In the heated atmosphere following the attacks, Qaradawi's planned visit next month for a congress of the Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF) was attacked by the opposition Socialists and far-right National Front.
"I told the emir of Qatar himself that this gentleman was not welcome in the territory of the French Republic," Sarkozy told France Info.
Qaradawi, who has ties with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, has been accused of making anti-Semitic and homophobic statements and was banned from Britain in 2008. He has been banned from entering the United States since 1999.
The International Union of Muslim Scholars, which Qaradawi heads, criticised the decision but said it respected French sovereignty.
"We are surprised, and we admonish France for refusing to grant Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi a visa. He is a moderate scholar who contributed to combating extremism," said the union's secretary general, Ali al-Qaradaghi.