Toulouse, France (CNN) -- About 300 police officers surrounded an apartment in the south of France on Wednesday, trying to coax a man whom authorities called a self-styled al Qaeda jihadist to surrender after a series of shootings that left seven people dead.
Soon after special operations police mounted their raid in Toulouse at 3:30 a.m., shots rang out from inside, wounding two officers, police said.
The man later threw a handgun out the window, but he has other guns, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.
As the standoff stretched to its sixth hour, Gueant said he expected the suspect to give himself up in the afternoon.
"The suspect told me -- and I hope he told me the truth -- that he will surrender in the afternoon," Gueant said.
But the suspect later broke off communications with the police, Gueant told reporters.
A police source named the suspect as Mohammed Merah. The source asked not to be named because he is not authorized to give the name to the media.
Gueant said Merah had a car containing more weapons near his apartment.
The 24-year-old suspect is accused of killing seven people in the last 10 days: a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school on Monday, and three soldiers of north African origin who had recently returned from Afghanistan in two earlier incidents.
As the siege went on, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had met with Muslim and Jewish leaders and assured them "that terrorism cannot destroy our national community."
Interior Minister Gueant said the suspect is a French national of Algerian origin who spent considerable time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"He claims to be a jihadist and says he belongs to al Qaeda. He wanted to avenge the Palestinian children and take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions," he told reporters at the scene.
The minister did not say how he knew this.
France has about 4,000 troops supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The government has said it will pull them out by 2013.
The suspect belongs to a group called Forsane Alizza, or Knights of Glory, Gueant said.
The French government banned the group in January for trying to recruit people to fight in Afghanistan.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/21/world/europe/france-shooting/
So much for the earlier MSM meme that he was a right-winger French NAZI. Strike up another for the Religion Of Peace.
Soon after special operations police mounted their raid in Toulouse at 3:30 a.m., shots rang out from inside, wounding two officers, police said.
The man later threw a handgun out the window, but he has other guns, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.
As the standoff stretched to its sixth hour, Gueant said he expected the suspect to give himself up in the afternoon.
"The suspect told me -- and I hope he told me the truth -- that he will surrender in the afternoon," Gueant said.
But the suspect later broke off communications with the police, Gueant told reporters.
A police source named the suspect as Mohammed Merah. The source asked not to be named because he is not authorized to give the name to the media.
Gueant said Merah had a car containing more weapons near his apartment.
The 24-year-old suspect is accused of killing seven people in the last 10 days: a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school on Monday, and three soldiers of north African origin who had recently returned from Afghanistan in two earlier incidents.
As the siege went on, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had met with Muslim and Jewish leaders and assured them "that terrorism cannot destroy our national community."
Interior Minister Gueant said the suspect is a French national of Algerian origin who spent considerable time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"He claims to be a jihadist and says he belongs to al Qaeda. He wanted to avenge the Palestinian children and take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions," he told reporters at the scene.
The minister did not say how he knew this.
France has about 4,000 troops supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The government has said it will pull them out by 2013.
The suspect belongs to a group called Forsane Alizza, or Knights of Glory, Gueant said.
The French government banned the group in January for trying to recruit people to fight in Afghanistan.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/21/world/europe/france-shooting/
So much for the earlier MSM meme that he was a right-winger French NAZI. Strike up another for the Religion Of Peace.
