Issues - Islamic Extremism - France - Mohamed Merah

(USA Today) -- Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman, was buried Thursday in the Muslim section of a cemetery in the Toulouse neighborhood of Cornebarrieu. About 20 men attended the ceremony, hiding their faces from reporters gathered outside.

Police say Merah filmed himself killing seven people in a spate of attacks earlier this month. Merah, who espoused radical Islam and said he had links to al-Qaeda, was shot in the head after a standoff with police last week in the southern city of Toulouse.

France was plunged into mourning and national outrage Monday by the terrorist-style killings of three young children and a rabbi as they gathered for classes at a Jewish school in a quiet residential neighborhood of Toulouse.

The lone gunman rode up on a motor scooter and opened fire with two pistols, first shooting at a group of waiting children outside the school and then following some of them into a courtyard as they ran for safety toward the building, a local prosecutor, Michel Valet, told reporters. In addition to the four people killed, six students were wounded, including a 17-year-old boy reported to be in serious condition at a Toulouse hospital.

The style of the killings and one of the weapons used led law enforcement authorities to suggest a link with the slayings of three soldiers last week in the same area of southwestern France — and possibly a political motive arising from France’s military role in the Afghan war.

The first soldier was shot and killed in Toulouse on March 11 as he met a man who pretended to be interested in buying his motorcycle. Four days later, two other soldiers were killed and a third was badly wounded as they took money from an automated teller machine in Montauban, about 30 miles to the north.