France appears to have badly mishandled the case of Mohamed Merah, the gunman responsible for the school killings in Toulouse last week. Despite numerous signs of radical Islamist leanings — including being placed on the U.S. no-fly list, claiming he had been trained by radical Jihadists, and threatening to kill a French family in 2010 after it objected to his attempt to force their son to watch videos of beheadings — he was not detained by French authorities. Measures being contemplated by French authorities to combat radical Islam in France do not address the underlying societal causes of this threat, as LIGNET explains.

U.S. officials told Reuters that Mohamed Merah was on a U.S. no-fly list because he traveled to both Pakistan and Afghanistan and claimed to have attended an al-Qaeda training camp. Although French authorities claim to have put Merah under surveillance, he was able to acquire a large collection of firearms, including automatic weapons.