http://news.yahoo.com/gunman-kills-4-outside-jewish-school-france-101331556.html3/19/12
TOULOUSE, France (AP) — A motorcycle assailant opened fire with two handguns Monday in front of a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse, killing a rabbi, his two young sons and a schoolgirl. One of the same guns was fired in other deadly motorcyle attacks in the area in recent days, officials said.
Authorities ordered increased security at schools and synagogues around the country after an attack that drew high-level uproar in Israel and revolted France, where school shootings and deadly attacks on Jews are extremely rare.
France, which has seen a low drumroll of anti-Semitic incidents, is particularly sensitive toward the Jewish community because of its World War II past of abetting Nazi occupiers deport Jewish citizens.
News that the gun was used in attacks last week in the Toulouse fueled suspicions that a serial killer on the loose is targeting French minorities, and not only Jews. The dead and injured in the earlier attacks were paratroopers of North African and Caribbean origin.
All three times, the attacker came on a motorcycle, apparently alone, and then sped away.
A police official said the same powerful .45-caliber handgun used in Monday's attack on a school in Toulouse was used in shootings four days ago that killed two paratroopers in nearby Montauban, and in an attack that killed a paratrooper eight days ago in Toulouse.
In Monday's attack, the killer also used a .35-caliber gun, the police official said. At least 15 shots were fired at the school in a residential neighborhood in northeastern Toulouse, the official said. The official, based in Paris, was not authorized to speak publicly and asked that he not be identified by name.
French prosecutors were studying possible terrorist links but the motive for all three attacks was unclear. The emotion over the school attack that cut down young children prompted high-level discussions in Israel, where the rabbi had recently lived.
"This is a day of national tragedy because children were killed in cold blood," President Nicolas Sarkozy said after rushing to Toulouse.
Religious minorities and issues of race have emerged as a prominent issue in France's current presidential campaign.
Sarkozy, speaking in Toulouse, denounced "the savagery" of the attack and vowing to track down the killer or killers.
"We will find him," he said.
Sarkozy ordered increased security at Jewish and Muslim buildings around Toulouse, while his prime minister told officials to "secure" all school and religious buildings in the entire country.
Sarkozy's challengers for the presidential vote in April and May also rushed to the scene.
more