French police corner ‘Islamist’ suspect after shootings

Gunfire erupted as members of the RAID police special forces team tried to storm an apartment in a residential district of Toulouse in a pre-dawn raid,and two officers were wounded,Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.

After the clash the two sides settled down into an armed siege,with police initially talking to the suspect through the door. Nine hours after the standoff began,officials evacuated neighbours from the building.

The operation was launched after three attacks in the past nine days in which a scooter-riding killer gunned down seven people,including three Jewish children and three off-duty soldiers,in the Toulouse region.

“Terrorism will not succeed in fracturing our national community,” President Nicolas Sarkozy declared in a brief televised address after a meeting with Muslim and Jewish community leaders.

“I say to the entire nation that we must be united,” said the president,who has suspended his re-election campaign to deal with the crisis and to pay his respects to the dead from the recent killings.

Gueant said the suspect was thought to be armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle,a Mini-Uzi 9mm machine pistol and other handguns,but had thrown a .45 pistol used in seven murders in the previous nine days from a window.

“He is currently in a dialogue with a police official and he says – I do not know if he is telling the truth – that he will hand himself in later in the day,” the minister said,in an interview with the BFM-TV news network.

Gueant said Merah had spoken to officers through the door of his apartment,and declared himself to be a “mujaheedeen” or Islamic warrior,fighting to avenge Palestinian children killed in the conflict with Israel.

“This person has made trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past… and says he belongs to Al-Qaeda and says he wanted to avenge Palestinian children and to attack the French army,” Gueant had told reporters at the scene.

“He has links with people involved in Jihadism and Salafism,” he added,referring to two strains of Muslim thought that have influenced Al-Qaeda.

Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad denounced the killings.

“It is time for these criminals to stop marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine and to stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life,” he said.

Merah had previously been arrested on a matter of common law in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar,cradle of the Taliban,a police source said.

The police raid came on the day that the Jewish victims of the attacks were being buried in Jerusalem.