Mistake

Police Stopped Watching Toulouse Shooter

Knew of his extremists links before attacks.

French police apparently decided to drastically reduce surveillance on Mohamed Merah, the man who went on an anti-Semitic rampage in Toulouse in March before being killed by police, in the months before the attack, according to French intelligence documents leaked Friday. Although authorities knew of his ties to Islamist extremists, they determined to monitor him on only a "selective basis" in November, four months before the shootings. Merah had apparently been under surveillance since 2006 and identified as a “privileged target” at the beginning of last year, after he returned from Afghanistan. Other documents indicate that he was in regular contact with “the radical Islamist movement in Toulouse.”