French Terror Suspect Had Escaped From Afghan Jail

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A top Afghan official has said that French school shooting suspect Mohamed Merah had been thrown in jail for terror activities in 2007 but had managed to join a prison break organized by Taliban insurgents.

Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin, is suspected to have shot and killed three French soldiers in addition to gunning down a Rabbi and three children outside a Jewish school in Toulouse.

Afghan security forces detained Merah on Dec. 19, 2007, and he was sentenced to three years in jail for planting bombs in the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban’s birthplace, Kandahar prison chief Ghulam Faruq said, citing prison documents.

Merah escaped along with up to 1,000 prisoners, including 400 Taliban insurgents. At the time of the break a Taliban soldier drove up to the prisons main gate and detonated a truck bomb opening the door.

At the time of the escape the Afghan government had been begging the US and its allies for more help because the Taliban were regrouping having brought in more than 4,000 soldiers from Chechnya, North Africa and Pakistan.

France has more than 3,600 troops stationed throughout one province of Afghanistan. They are part of a 130,000 NATO troop presence in the country. As the year winds down the French troops will be switching their mission to training Afghan soldiers and then leaving the war torn country.

In Pakistan, an intelligence officer said that Merah had never been arrested there before, saying,

“We have no information about him,”

Do you believe that there are many terrorists out there who have been in the hands of the government before returning to terror?