Forsane Alizza: Background Brief
In March 2012, three French soldiers, a professor and three students of a Jewish school in Toulouse (South of France) were shot and killed. The suspect of these shootings, Mohammed Merah, is a 24 years old French citizen from Algerian background. He was under the French intelligence radar since traveling twice in Pakistan and Afghanistan for operational training in 2010 and 2011.
In 2011, Merah was arrested in Kandahar (Afghanistan) and deported to France. Mohammed Merah claims to be a Mujahideen, who belongs to al-Qaeda and wanted to “avenge Palestinian children” as well as “strike against the French military due to their foreign military operations”. According to various French sources, Merah is linked to Forsane Alizza, a radical Salafist group that operates in France and that was disassembled in January 2012. This report discusses the ideology, modus operandi and structure of Forsane Alizza.