France Fights Terror in Wake of Attacks

Anti-Semitic attacks perpetrated by Muslims continue to plague the Jews of France despite efforts by French authorities to stem the wave of terror currently sweeping the country.

French authorities have declared war on anti-Semitism and stepped up security around Jewish sites, but anti-Semitic attacks perpetrated by Muslim assailants continue to plague the Jewish community in France.

The latest reported attack occurred last Thursday when a 13-year-old Jewish boy was assaulted with mace in Le Pre-Saint-Gervais, a northeastern suburb of Paris, by three assailants described as “unidentified minors.”

The attackers, who appeared to be of North African descent, and possibly Muslim, identified the boy as Jewish because he wore identifiably Jewish garb –  a kippah (skullcap) and Tzitzit (garment with fringes) –  a report by the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA) states.

The victim was rendered temporarily blind and rushed to a nearby clinic for medical treatment while suffering intense pain, the BNVCA report said.

This attack is part of a surge in anti-Semitic incidents in France that has been ongoing since 2012, according to BNVCA, and which led to the death of 12 people at the hands of French Muslims targeting Jews.

“The situation is becoming increasingly intolerable,” BNVCA stated in the report. “A child of 13, as he is about to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, knows nothing but the climate of fear and insecurity as a result of anti-Semitism.”

Foiled Attack on a Jewish Conference

Another report published Wednesday states that jihadists who were arrested last September in Lyon had been planning to carry out a terrorist attack at a Jewish group’s conference on anti-Semitism.

Five suspects were arrested in a series of sweeps by French police in mid-September. They were reportedly plotting to attack an event organized in Lyon by the regional branch of Le Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF), the umbrella of French Jewish communities and organizations, French daily Le Progres reported.

Among the five arrested are Karim and Reda Bekhaled, brothers who are believed to have been involved in recruiting Muslims to fight in Syria. A police officer said that the brothers “had the ambition of dying as martyrs” and “planned to carry out imminently an act of violence.”

Breakthrough in Hyper Cacher Investigation

In the meantime, French authorities have made a breakthrough in the investigation of the Hyper Cacher terror attack in which four Jews were murdered by a Muslim terrorist in Paris.

A French justice official announced Wednesday that four men accused of aiding Amedy Coulibaly, the terrorist who committed the attack, will be indicted.

Three of the men, all in their 20’s, are accused of helping with the logistics and purchasing weapons for Coulibaly, Paris Prosecutor François Molins said during a news conference. Another drove a vehicle for Coulibaly. “They were part of a criminal terrorist organization,” Molins said.

Police have arrested 12 suspects in total in connection with the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the Hyper Cacher attack, and they are searching for more suspects.