It said that Merah was a member of the Islamist jihadist movement Forsane Alliza, a French organisation with a cluster of followers in Toulouse who are suspected of inciting violence and terrorism.

[16] The French government outlawed the Forsane Alizza organization because it was encouraging citizens to travel to Afghanistan to fight jihad.

[14] A subsequent psychiatric report described Merah as polar narcissistic, noting his slicked-back hair and high interest in personal grooming and designer clothes.

[19] He said Merah exhibited "neurotic fragility owing to the departure of his father and lack of supervision on his mother's part.

[20] French intelligence officials have suggested he had a double life or even a split personality, which allowed him to party in nightclubs and drink alcohol with acquaintances who were unaware of his arsenal of weapons, visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and attack plans.

[12] Bernard Squarcini said that Merah "appeared on radars" when arrested in Kandahar, Afghanistan in December 2010, while visiting as a "tourist."

[32] One video shows Merah shooting two French Muslim[33] soldiers in Montauban, and shouting Allahu Akbar.

[40][34][41] Merah said that he resented France's ban on women wearing the burqa, and that "the Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine.

[47] Dan Bilefsky linked Merah's anger to the high unemployment and alienation of young immigrants in France, and said this affected his development as a self-styled jihadist.

[24] Canadian journalist Rosie DiManno argued that Merah was motivated neither by religion nor the treatment of immigrants in France.

DiManno characterized Merah as a sociopath who "sought posthumous grandeur" and adopted a terror agenda as a cover for his pre-existing rage.

[49] Journalist Paul Sheehan attacked what he called progressives going into overdrive to "dissociate the violence from Islam" when it was revealed the killer was a Muslim who supported al-Qaeda.

He observed that Merah had dubbed his film of the shootings with verses from the Koran invoking jihad and the greatness of Islam before he mailed it to Al-Jazeera.

[50] President Sarkozy's intelligence adviser stated that Merah did not originally target the Jewish school, but attacked it only after arriving too late to ambush a soldier nearby.

"[19] Bernard Squarcini, the head of DRCI (France's domestic intelligence agency), stated, "you have to go back to his broken childhood and psychiatric troubles.

Haaretz reported that these facts cast doubt on Squarcini's view of Merah as a solitary figure who was not part of a terrorist network.

[53][54] According to older brother Abdelghani, when Merah's body was brought home, members of the local terrorist community visited the family to praise his actions and they cried tears of joy.