The Former Head Of French Intelligence Says The Toulouse Gunman Was A French Informant

The speculation about his connection to French intelligence began when Yves Bonnet — former head of France’s counter-espionage service DST — told the Toulouse newspaper La Dépêche du Midi that Merah passed information on to the domestic French intelligence agency DCRI (i.e. the French equivalent of the FBI):

“He was known to the DCRI, not especially because he was an Islamist, but because he had a correspondent in domestic intelligence,” Bonnet said. “When you have a correspondent, it’s not completely innocent. This is not trivial.” (Translation from RT)


A senior American officer in the southern province of Kandahar in Afghanistan told the French newspaper Le Monde that Merah's passport application included trips to Israel, then Syria, Iraq and Jordan.

Before Merah was arrested in Kandahar on Nov. 22, 2010, handed over to NATO forces and subsequently sent back to France, he had traveled to the Indian consulate in Kandahar to obtain a visa to visit the country.

In 2011 he spent two months in the Pakistani tribal areas of North and South Warziristan, a crossroads of the Taliban and jihadist insurgencies in the region.

From Le Monde (translated by Babylon):

Another disturbing factor on the [movement] of Mohamed Merah remains to be clarified: its presence in Iran "twice" according to one French military source in Afghanistan. Questioned by the World on Wednesday, the DCRI, responsible for counter-espionage and counter-terrorism, has denied this stay.

Le Monde also quoted Squarcini as saying that Merah asked for a local DCRI agent by name while he was holed-up in the apartment surrounded by police.

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