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 guns had also been used in other deadly motorcycle attacks in the area,officials said. Authorities ordered increased security at schools and synagogues around the country after an attack that revolted France,where school shootings and deadly attacks on Jews are extremely rare. The attack,the third motorcycle-based slaying in the area in a week,also produced high-level uproar in Israel and drew condemnation from the US government. 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 in deporting Jewish citizens. News that the gun was used in attacks last week around Toulouse fuelled suspicions that a serial killer is targeting French minorities,and not only Jews. The dead and injured in the earlier attacks were paratroopers of North African and Caribbean origin. In all three cases,the attacker came on a motorcycle,apparently alone,and then sped away. A police official said the same powerful .45-caliber handgun used in Mondays attack on a school in Toulouse was used in shootings four days ago that killed two paratroopers and seriously injured another in nearby Montauban,and in an attack that killed a paratrooper eight days ago in Toulouse. In Mondays 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 neighbourhood in northeastern Toulouse,the official said. The official,based in Paris,was not authorised to speak publicly. French prosecutors were studying possible terrorist links but the motive for all three attacks was unclear. Still,religious minorities and issues of race have emerged as prominent issues in France's current presidential campaign. This is a day of national tragedy because children were killed in cold blood, President Nicolas Sarkozy said after rushing to Toulouse. Sarkozy denounced the savagery of the attack and vowed to track down the killer or killers. Barbarity,savagery,cruelty cannot win. Hate cannot win, Sarkozy said. We will find him. 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. A 30-year-old rabbi and his 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons were killed Monday just before classes started at the Ozar Hatorah school,a junior high and high school in a quiet residential neighbourhood,Toulouse Prosecutor Michel Valet said. Another child,the 8-year-old daughter of the school principal,was also killed,school officials said. Valet said a 17-year-old boy was also seriously wounded and in the operating ward of a city hospital. He shot at everything he had in front of him,children and adults, Valet said. The children were chased inside the school. Video surveillance footage showed the gunman shooting one child at close range in the head,before fleeing on a motor bike, said Nicolas Yardeni,regional head of the French Jewish umbrella association,CRIF. France has the largest Jewish community in Western Europe,estimated at about 5,00,000,as well as its largest Muslim population,about 5 million. In Jerusalem,Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said whether it was a terror attack or a hate crime,the loss of life is unacceptable.
