The murder of a policewoman at Rambouillet, south west of Paris, on Friday April 23rd brought to 12 the number of members of the police and security forces who have been killed in terrorist attacks in France since 2015. Overall, attacks targeting police officers have grown in number over that period. This “French exception” is a phenomenon which has become more prevalent since the collapse of Islamic State's self-styled 'Caliphate' in the Middle East. Matthieu Suc reports.
On April 14th this year Manhattan Wolves, a jihadist propaganda magazine, published its second issue. As the organisation MEMRI, a non-governmental body that monitors Islamic media, pointed out, this online magazine which supports Al Qaeda and which describes itself as a “guide for lone wolves in Crusader countries”, called on followers to kill police officers. The magazine also carried an announcement of a 60,000-dollar reward in bitcoin for the first person to kill a police officer in a Western country. The cover photograph is the rear view of a police officer during an operation to maintain law and order. That police operation is in France.
