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Blasts in French shooter siege

March 22, 2012

A series of explosions was heard from the property in Toulouse where an Islamist suspected of killing seven people was in hiding. Negotiations over the man's peaceful surrender were believed to have come to an end.

https://p.dw.com/p/14OuP
Police block a street as a raid on a house to arrest a suspect in the killings
Image: REUTERS

Blasts and gunfire on Thursday morning from the building in Toulouse where the central suspect in the string of killings has been holed up since early on Wednesday morning.

French police special forces were besieging a first-floor flat where 23-year-old Mohamed Merah was hiding when three loud blasts were heard just before midnight. Hours later there were reports of two more, as well as gunfire. Gas and electricity supplies to the house had been cut.

"I confirm that the assault has started," a police source told the news agency Reuters at the time of the initial blasts. Interior Ministry sources later revealed that the explosions had been intended to intimidate the suspect after he reneged on an agreement to surrender.

Police had been negotiating with Merah for hours after he fired through the door as they tried to storm the apartment early on Wednesday. The deputy mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Pierre Havrin, confirmed that negotiations with Merah had ended and that an operation was underway to apprehend him, with reports saying that police had shut off nearby streetlights.
Authorities had earlier identified the suspect in the killing of three soldiers and four civilians as self-confessed al Qaeda militant Merah. Friends and his defense lawyer said Merah was "courteous" but had a record of petty crime.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy attends a ceremony to pay homage to the three soldiers
Sarkozy told mourners at the soldiers' funerals the men had been victims of "terrorist executions"Image: AP

'Crimes will not go unpunished'

The three paratroopers - of North African and Caribbean origin - were gunned down last week near their southern French barracks in Montauban.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy , Socialist presidential challenger Francois Hollande and other election candidates paid their respects there on Wednesday.

The four civilians - three Jewish children and a teacher - were gunned down on Monday by a motorcyclist in adjacent Toulouse. They were also given funeral rites, in Jerusalem, on Wednesday.

Sarkozy told mourners at the soldiers' funeral that they had been the victims of a "terrorist execution." He stressed that, whatever their ethnic origins or creed, the murders had "hit" the French Republic. "These crimes will not go unpunished," Sarkozy said.

rc/pfd (AP, Reuters dpa)