France shootings siege: Live Report

1247 GMT: Police say are treating seriously a call to news channel France 24 by a man claiming to be the hunted killer. The call came two hours before special forces cornered the suspect. Claiming to be affiliated to Al-Qaeda, the caller said "either I will go prison with my head held high or I will die with a smile," according to journalist Ebba Kalondo.

1227 GMT: More details are emerging about the suspect, with French Interior Minister Claude Gueant saying he was part of a group of Islamic Salafist fundamentalists in Toulouse who had made two trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He carried out at least 18 minor crimes, reports say, and was arrested in Afghanistan's former Taliban stronghold Kandahar in late 2010 for an unspecified crime, according to a source close to the inquiry.

1212 GMT: At the scene - The murder suspect has resumed negotiations with police, officers say. He had cut off talks with police about two hours earlier.

1210 GMT: Referring to a "polite and courteous" man, Etelin describes Merah as "a gentle, amenable individual and certainly not a fanatic." He said his client had served a prison sentence for "a common crime" after snatching a bag from someone in a bank.

1157 GMT: Lawyer Christian Etelin, who has defended Merah over various petty crimes since 2004, tells BFM-TV that "the situation and what I know of his personality, with certain fragile aspects, leads me to fear unpredictable behaviour."

1147 GMT: In Toulouse - Several young men, presenting themselves as friends of Merah, have arrived near the scene where he is holed up in a flat, offering to act as mediators, AFP's Nicolas Gaudichet reports. Police are asking them to wait.

1143 GMT: According to a police source, Mohammed Merah, born October 10, 1988, in Toulouse, had recently been refused entry into the army. His killing methods suggest someone who was trained and used to using weapons.

1132 GMT: The France 24 journalist who received a call claiming responsibility for the attacks describes the caller as "a very eloquent young man and "very, very calm". "He said that it was to avenge the law against wearing the veil and France's participation in the war in Afghanistan and also to protest against the situation in Palestine," she tells France Info.

1102 GMT: Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad says extremists must stop "marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine" and "stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life". The shooting suspect claims to have acted to avenge Palestinian children, France's interior minister said earlier.

1046 GMT: Those neighbours trapped in the besieged flats, who were pleading to be let out, have in fact now been evacuated, police say. Officers said they were in shock and were being offered psychological support.

1040 GMT: At the scene - Neighbours trapped inside the five-storey apartment building besieged by French special forces in Toulouse are pleading for authorities to get them out. "You must ask them to get us out!" a sobbing woman told France Info radio by telephone, saying she lived just above the first floor flat where the suspect was holed up.

1035 GMT: Palestinian diplomatic missions in France condemn the "hateful" Jewish school attack "in the strongest possible terms". "All racist crimes are attacks on humanity in general and on the republic in particular," they said in a statement, issued in the name of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the Palestinian Authority, and Palestine's missions to France and UNESCO.

1031 GMT: President Nicolas Sarkozy, giving a TV address, says: "Terrorism will not succeed in fracturing our national community".

1028 GMT: French socialist presidential candidate Fran?ois Hollande voices his "relief" that the suspect has been identified and hopes "the operation unfolds normally".

1020 GMT: France's domestic intelligence agency had tracked the suspect "for years", Gueant admits, telling journalists: "He had for several years been tracked by the DCRI and its agents in Toulouse, but there was never anything to suggest that he was preparing a criminal act."

1015 GMT: The French interior minister says the gunman has stopped negotiating with police. "He is no longer talking, the conversations have stopped," Gueant tells journalists in Toulouse. Earlier police said they were in talks with Mohammed Merah who had pledged to surrender later.

1012 GMT: More on the latest arrests... the mother and brother of the suspect has been detained along with the brother's girlfriend, police reveal. Police had said previously that the brother was in custody and that the mother had been taken to the siege scene to try and get her son to surrender.

1009 GMT Sarkozy is also to meet today with the head of the French Muslim Council, Mohammed Moussaoui, and Richard Prasquier, the head of France's main Jewish organisation, the CRIF.

1006 GMT: French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is going to Montauban for the funerals of the three soldiers killed at 1400 GMT, will "pass by Toulouse" and "meet the investigators to thank them", Intererior Minister Claude Gueant announces.

0955 GMT: Police and ministers say the gunman's mother and brother have been arrested and that the shooter has stopped talking to police. More to follow.

0943 GMT: At the funeral of the four school shooting victims, taking place in Jerusalem, Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai says: "There is justice and there is a judge. We hope that the government of France will take the strongest steps against the perpetrators and do everything to ensure the safety of all the Jews in France, to chase out anti-Semitism and its supporters."

0939 GMT: France's top Muslim leader speaks out against the shootings, saying the killer acted against Islam. "These acts are in total contradiction with the foundations of this religion," says the head of the French Muslim Council, Mohammed Moussaoui. "France's Muslims are offended by this claim of belonging to this religion."

0929 GMT: More on the comments from French Interior Minister Claude Gueant ... he says the suspect is thought to be armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Mini-Uzi 9mm machine pistol and other handguns, but has thrown the .45 pistol believed to have been used in the shootings from the window.

"The presumed guilty party asked for a means to communicate with police. In exchange for this means of communication, he threw a Colt .45 from the window. He has certainly thrown one weapon out, but he has others," Gueant told BFM-TV.

Earlier Gueant said the suspect 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.

0913 GMT: The France 24 journalist who received the claim for the attacks during the night tells AFP journalist Nicolas Gaudichet that the man gave her details of the murder, including the number of shots fired and type of weapon used. "He said he was affiliated with Al-Qaeda and that it was only the beginning...that everything was filmed... and that it would be on the web shortly".

0857 GMT: The explosion heard earlier near the building where the suspect is holed up came from the destruction of a vehicle which was blocking police efforts, a source close to the investigation says.

0850 GMT: The besieged suspect has declared he will surrender later today, Interior Minister Claude Gueant says.

"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 he will hand himself in later in the day," the minister tells BFM-TV news network.

0843 GMT: Back in France, police have named the suspected gunman as Mohammed Merah, 23, of Algerian origin.

0840 GMT: Meanwhile in Jerusalem funerals are under way for the three French-Israeli children and a teacher who were gunned down in the Jewish school shooting, AFP correspondent Selim Saheb Ettaba reports from Israel.

At least 2,000 mourners were gathered at the Givat Shaul cemetery as the four bodies were carried to the gravesite. Among them is French Foreign Minister Alain Jupp? as well as family and friends of the deceased.

0835 GMT: French Interior Minister Claude Gueant says police want to catch the suspect alive. He tells BFM television: "Our main concern is to catch him and to catch him under such conditions that he can be brought to justice."

0830 GMT: A loud blast was heard earlier near the besieged building, an AFP journalist reports.

LIVE REPORT: French police have surrounded a house in Toulouse where a man suspected of a series of deadly shootings is holed up. In this live report AFP will be following the operation as it unfolds.

So far two officers have been wounded after shots were fired at the property under siege in a residential area of the city.

The suspect is a French national of North African origin who has declared himself a member of the Al-Qaeda network, officials said.

In the latest development, police said the suspect had been previously arrested in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. A source close to the investigation told AFP that the 23-year-old had once been arrested on a matter of common law in the country.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/france-shootings-siege-live-report-083034635.html

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