Mohamed Merah, 24, was found dead with a weapon in his hand. Has been pinned down since Wednesday morning in a Toulouse flat after a raid in which police captured his brother but had to pull back when three officers were shot and wounded. The scene is completely surrounded by heavily armed police from Raid, the French specialist anti-terrorist and hostage response squad.
Merah, who claims to have links to an al-Qaeda fringe group, had earlier indicated he would surrender. [photo trust.org]
Merah is blamed for the shooting murders of three schoolchildren and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse, and for gunning down three soldiers in Toulouse and nearby Montauban. He has called himself an al-Qaida fighter and declared he would have killed more people given the chance.
French commentator, Pierre Haski told the BBC’s Newshour programme that “the mystery here is that he was found to have quite a good arsenal of weapons, war weapons, and given that he was under surveillance it’s not clear how this could have escaped the attention of the authorities.” French media are reporting that the suspect tried to have the scooter he used in the attacks repainted after the first two – providing police with an important clue that helped trace him. [photo warincontext.org]
Tolosa Tragedy in a Jewish school
Gun used in school massacre that killed four was the same used in the murders of three soldiers last week, a police source has said. Anti-terrorism investigators have opened …