'The 24 year-old, known as Mohammed, told police he was a jihadist for al Qaeda seeking revenge for Palestinian children and French military postings overseas. '
The shootings began on March 11, when an paratrooper of North African origin arranged to meet someone in Toulouse to sell him a scooter he had advertised online, revealing in the ad his military status.
Imad Ibn Ziaten, a 30-year-old staff sergeant in the 1st Airborne Transportation Regiment, was shot in the head at close range with a .45 calibre pistol, a method that was to become the suspect's signature.
Four days later three more paratroopers from another regiment were gunned down - two of them fatally - in identical fashion in a street in the garrison town of Montauban, 45 kilometres (29 miles) away.
The dead - Corporal Abel Chennouf, 25, and Private First Class Mohammed Legouade, 23, both of the 17t Parachute Engineering Regiment - were French soldiers of North African Arab origin.
Arab soldiers are prized targets for groups like Al-Qaeda, which regards Muslims who fight for Western armies as traitors.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-jihadist.html