Police set to seize gunman
Source: Agencies |
March 22, 2012, Thursday
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After a predawn raid erupted into a firefight, French riot police were yesterday pressing for the surrender of a holed-up gunman suspected in seven killings and claiming allegiance to al-Qaida.
After 13 hours of negotiations, one French official said hundreds of police were ready to storm the building in the southwestern city of Toulouse to end the standoff.
Three officers have already been wounded trying to arrest the 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent who is suspected of killing three Jewish children, a rabbi and three French paratroopers.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said the gunman, Mohamed Merah, had been to Afghanistan twice and had trained in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan. Molins said the gunman's brother had been implicated in a network that sent militant fighters to Iraq.
Yesterday's police raid was part of France's biggest manhunt since a wave of terrorist attacks in the 1990s by Algerian extremists. The chase began after France's worst school shooting on Monday and two previous attacks on paratroopers, killings that have horrified the country and frozen the campaigning for the French presidential election starting next month.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has played up nationalist themes in his bid for a second term.
Cedric Delage, regional secretary for a police union, said the suspect had promised to turn himself into police shortly. Delage said if that didn't happen, police would force their way in.
The suspect told police he belonged to al-Qaida and wanted to take revenge for Palestinian children killed in the Middle East, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said, adding that the man was also angry about French military intervention abroad.
"He's after the army," Gueant said.
An unnamed Interior Ministry official said the suspect had been under surveillance for years for having "fundamentalist" views.
After hours of trying to persuade him to surrender, police evacuated the five-story building, escorting residents out using the roof and fire truck ladders.
French authorities said the suspect threw a Colt .45 handgun used in each of the three attacks out of a window in exchange for a device to talk to authorities, but has more weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle. Gueant said other weapons had been found in the suspect's car.
The suspect "said he wants to avenge the deaths of Palestinians," Gueant told reporters, adding that he is "less explicit" about why he killed French paratroopers. The paratroopers were of Muslim and French Caribbean origin, but the interior minister said the suspect told them the ethnic origin had nothing to do with his actions.
Police swept in soon after 3am on the residential neighborhood in Toulouse where the suspect was holed up. At one point, volleys of gunfire were exchanged.
The suspect promised several times to surrender in the afternoon, then stopped talking to negotiators, Gueant said. In the early afternoon, he resumed talking.
"Terrorism will not be able to fracture our national community," Sarkozy said on national television yesterday before heading to the funeral services for two paratroopers killed and another injured in nearby Montauban.
The series of attacks - every four days since March 11 - began with the killing of another paratrooper in Toulouse.
"The main concern is to arrest him, and to arrest him in conditions by which we can present him to judicial officials," Gueant said, adding that authorities want to "take him alive."
After 13 hours of negotiations, one French official said hundreds of police were ready to storm the building in the southwestern city of Toulouse to end the standoff.
Three officers have already been wounded trying to arrest the 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent who is suspected of killing three Jewish children, a rabbi and three French paratroopers.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said the gunman, Mohamed Merah, had been to Afghanistan twice and had trained in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan. Molins said the gunman's brother had been implicated in a network that sent militant fighters to Iraq.
Yesterday's police raid was part of France's biggest manhunt since a wave of terrorist attacks in the 1990s by Algerian extremists. The chase began after France's worst school shooting on Monday and two previous attacks on paratroopers, killings that have horrified the country and frozen the campaigning for the French presidential election starting next month.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has played up nationalist themes in his bid for a second term.
Cedric Delage, regional secretary for a police union, said the suspect had promised to turn himself into police shortly. Delage said if that didn't happen, police would force their way in.
The suspect told police he belonged to al-Qaida and wanted to take revenge for Palestinian children killed in the Middle East, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said, adding that the man was also angry about French military intervention abroad.
"He's after the army," Gueant said.
An unnamed Interior Ministry official said the suspect had been under surveillance for years for having "fundamentalist" views.
After hours of trying to persuade him to surrender, police evacuated the five-story building, escorting residents out using the roof and fire truck ladders.
French authorities said the suspect threw a Colt .45 handgun used in each of the three attacks out of a window in exchange for a device to talk to authorities, but has more weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle. Gueant said other weapons had been found in the suspect's car.
The suspect "said he wants to avenge the deaths of Palestinians," Gueant told reporters, adding that he is "less explicit" about why he killed French paratroopers. The paratroopers were of Muslim and French Caribbean origin, but the interior minister said the suspect told them the ethnic origin had nothing to do with his actions.
Police swept in soon after 3am on the residential neighborhood in Toulouse where the suspect was holed up. At one point, volleys of gunfire were exchanged.
The suspect promised several times to surrender in the afternoon, then stopped talking to negotiators, Gueant said. In the early afternoon, he resumed talking.
"Terrorism will not be able to fracture our national community," Sarkozy said on national television yesterday before heading to the funeral services for two paratroopers killed and another injured in nearby Montauban.
The series of attacks - every four days since March 11 - began with the killing of another paratrooper in Toulouse.
"The main concern is to arrest him, and to arrest him in conditions by which we can present him to judicial officials," Gueant said, adding that authorities want to "take him alive."
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