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BREAKING NEWS: GUNMAN DIES IN FIREFIGHT
French police in standoff with suspect in Toulouse shootings
(CNN) – According to Interior Minister Claude Gueant, the suspect is a French national of Algerian origin who spent considerable time in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Gueant said the man said “he belongs to al Qaeda.”
The suspect and his brother apparently belong to the jihadist group, Forsane Alizza, or Knights of Glory. Very little is known about the group, which the French government banned in January for trying to recruit people to fight in Afghanistan.
Speaking to reporters at the scene, Gueant said the man wanted to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and the presence of French troops abroad. The shootings began on March 11, when a paratrooper of North African origin arranged to meet a man in Toulouse to sell him a scooter which he had advertised online, revealing in the ad his military status. The police tracked down all 567 respondents to the ad and came across this person of interest.
France24 – Suspect of Algerian origin was in the DCRI’s sights
Toulouse shooting: ‘Jihadist’ in siege is named by police
(The Telegraph) – A police source said the man barricaded inside an apartment surrounded by armed police is Mohammed Merah, 24, a Frenchman of Algerian origin. He has 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 24 year-old told police he was a jihadist for al Qaeda seeking revenge for Palestinian children and French military postings overseas. The self-declared al Qaeda jihadist has declared he will surrender later today, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.
Police are concerned that he may have explosives and that he will blow up the building, in the Cote Pavee residential district, if they storm it. Officers blew up a vehicle that was blocking access to the area this morning at 8am. They have also brought in a bus to help evacuate residents of the building once the siege concludes.
The suspect is thought to be armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Mini-Uzi 9mm machine pistol and other handguns, but had thrown a .45 pistol he used to murder seven people in recent weeks from the window.
Merah’s mother, who is from Algeria, was brought to the scene but she refused to reason with him, saying she had “little control” over him.
As mujahedeen was arrested in Afghanistan and escaped from Kandahar prison …
Toulouse gunman ‘was arrested in Afghanistan’ and escaped from Kandahar prison
(Reuters) – French school shooting suspect Mohamed Merah had been arrested for bomb making in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in 2007 but escaped months later in a Taliban prison break, the director of prisons in Kandahar told Reuters.
Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin, was suspected of killing seven people in the name of al Qaeda, including three children at a Jewish school in southwestern France.
Kandahar prison chief Ghulam Faruq said that security forces detained Merah on December 19, 2007, and he was sentenced to three years in jail for planting bombs in Kandahar province, the Taliban’s birthplace.
Merah escaped jail along with up to 1,000 prisoners, including 400 Taliban insurgents, during a Taliban attack on southern Afghanistan’s main prison in June 2008.
Ayman al-Zawahiri ‘issues France threat’
(BBC News) Sept. 11, 2006 – In the tape, he issued a warning of new attacks targeting Israel and the Gulf. Although France’s government opposed the US-led war in Iraq, French officials believe the country is still a target for Islamist militants.
In the video, Zawahiri says: “Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda. This should be a source of chagrin, frustration and sadness for the apostates [of the regime in Algeria], the treacherous sons of [former colonial power] France,” according to the transcript of his message.
He urges the group to become “a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders”.
“We pray to God that our brothers from the GSPC succeed in causing harm to the top members of the crusader coalition, and particularly their leader, the vicious America,” he says.
Anne Giudicelli, head of the Terrorisc security consultancy who reviewed the whole tape, told Le Figaro newspaper the anti-France message had dominated the homepage of the website used by the GSPC for the past few days. Also the GSPC pledged its allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and vowed to pursue jihad in Algeria, according to a statement posted on the internet.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
