France shooting: Midnight blasts as French shooting suspect holds out

THREE loud blasts heard outside an apartment in Toulouse last night where a suspect in seven shootings has been holed up since early yesterday morning were intended to intimidate him, the French interior ministry said.

Pierre-Henry Brandet, the ministry spokesman said: “They were moves to intimidate the gunman who seems to have changed his mind and does not want to surrender. There is no assault.”

Sources said the French authorities wanted to capture the gunman, 24-year-old Mohamed Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin, alive for interrogation purposes. A police source and a deputy Toulouse mayor had said earlier that an assault had started after the blasts had been heard at the building.

There were no sounds of gunfire following the blasts. Merah is thought to be armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Mini-Uzi submachine pistol and a collection of handguns.

Police have been trying to get Merah to turn himself over after he fired through the door at them while they tried to storm his apartment in the suburbs of Toulouse in the early hours of yesterday morning.

Merah, suspected of killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers, was planning to carry out another series of shootings, French prosecutor François Molins said last night.

Mr Molins said Merah had been about to kill another soldier when the police raid was launched yesterday morning. He also said the gunman’s brother had been implicated in a network sending fighters to Iraq.

The French interior ministry admitted yesterday Merah had been under surveillance for years for having “fundamentalist” views but still seems to have been able to launch his attacks. Three police officers were wounded when he shot at them through the door of his flat when they arrived to arrest him.

It has been reported Merah has been to Afghanistan twice and trained in the militant stronghold of Waziristan in north-west Pakistan. He claims to have links to al-Qaeda.

The police raid was part of France’s biggest manhunt since a wave of terrorist attacks in the 1990s by Algerian extremists.

It began after France’s worst-ever school shooting on Monday and two previous attacks on paratroopers, killings that have horrified the country and brought to a halt campaigning for the presidential election next month.

Merah has been in contact with the police and has told them he belonged to al-Qaeda and wanted to take revenge for Palestinian children killed in the Middle East.

During the stand-off yesterday, Merah threw a handgun used in each of the attacks out a window in exchange for a radio to talk to police, but kept more weapons including an AK-47.

Police moved into the residential neighbourhood in Toulouse where Merah lived just after 3am At one point, volleys of gunfire were exchanged.

Merah promised several times to surrender in the afternoon, and at one point stopped talking to negotiators.

Merah’s mother, brother and a companion of the brother have been detained for questioning.

A key to tracking Merah was the Yamaha scooter used in all three attacks, stolen 6 March. The frame was painted white, said witnesses to the school attack.