Toulouse and Montauban shootings

The Toulouse and Montauban shootings were a series of Islamist terrorist attacks committed by Mohammed Merah in March 2012 in the cities of Montauban and Toulouse in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France. He targeted French Army soldiers as well as children and teachers at a Jewish school. In total, seven people were killed and eleven more wounded.

Merah, a 23-year-old French criminal of Algerian descent born and raised in Toulouse, began his killing spree on 11 March, shooting an off-duty French Army paratrooper in Toulouse. On 15 March, he killed two off-duty uniformed French soldiers and seriously wounded another in Montauban. On 19 March, he opened fire at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse, killing a rabbi and three children, and also wounding four others. After the shootings, France raised its terror alert system, Vigipirate, to the highest level in the Midi-Pyrénées region and surrounding departements.

Merah, who filmed his attacks with a body-worn camera, claimed allegiance to Al-Qaeda. He said he carried out his attacks because of France's participation in the War in Afghanistan and its ban on Islamic face veils, and justified his attack on the Jewish school because "The Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine". He was killed on 22 March by a police tactical unit after a 30-hour siege at his rented apartment there, during which he wounded six officers. His brother and another man were later convicted of taking part in a "terrorist conspiracy" over the attacks, which were condemned by the French Council of the Muslim Faith, the United Nations and many governments around the world.