Gunman jumps to death after French standoff

AP

Toulouse (France), 22 Mar 2012: An Islamic extremist who boasted of killing seven people in an attempt to "bring France to its knees" died today after jumping from his window, arms in hand, in a shootout with police, a French minister said.

 

Interior Minister Claude Gueant said the suspect, Mohamed Merah, who claims links to al-Qaida, was found holed up in the bathroom after police entered his apartment this morning to end a 32-hour standoff.

 

Police and the suspect exchanged gunfire before Merah died, with two police wounded in the firefight.

 

Authorities said Merah, a French citizen of Algerian descent, espoused a radical form of Islam and had been to Afghanistan and the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan, where he claimed to have received training from al-Qaida.

 

Police said, in hours of negotiations yesterday when the standoff first began, Merah admitted to being proud of killing a rabbi, three Jewish children and three French paratroopers in three separate motorcycle shooting attacks.

 

They are believed to be the first killings inspired by Islamic radical motives in France in more than a decade. Gueant earlier had said police wanted to capture Merah alive.

 

Elite police squads set off sporadic blasts throughout the night and into the morning some blew off the apartment’s shutters in what officials described as a tactic aimed to pressure Merah to give up.