The Islamic extremist who killed seven people at a French school earlier this week died after a 32 hour standoff with authorities. The shooter jumped from his window, gun in hand, during a fierce shootout with police, a French minister said.
STORY: Suspected Murderer Of 10 French In Standoff With Police!
Interior Minister Claude Gueant said the suspect, Mohamed Merah, 23, ended with his death after a more than 32-hour standoff, as an elite police squad tried to capture him alive.
Merah was wanted in the deaths of seven people, three paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi, all killed over 10 days. Another student and another paratrooper were wounded in his attacks.
According to police, Merah admitted to being proud of the seven slayings he carried out in three motorcycle shooting attacks around the southwestern city of Toulouse.
According to the Associated Press, 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.
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. A new set of detonations, known as flash bangs, resounded at 10:30 a.m. (0930 GMT), portending the end to the standoff.
“The killer came out of the bathroom, firing with extreme violence,” Gueant said, adding that the RAID squad had “never seen an assault like it.”
The volley of gunfire resounded throughout the neighborhood Thursday morning, and two police officers were wounded in the firefight.
Gueant said police “went in by the door, taking off the door first. They also came in by the windows.”
He said police used special video equipment to search the second-floor apartment but found him nowhere, until the special instruments surveyed the bathroom.
“The killer came out” firing “with extreme violence,” Gueant told reporters. Police “tried to protect themselves and fired back.”
“Mohamed Merah jumped out the window, gun in hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground,” Gueant said.
Holed up alone in an evacuated apartment building, Merah clung to his few remaining assets, which were a small arsenal of guns and ammo.
Authorities wanted to take him alive but Merah had other plans, his killings sent shockwaves through a peaceful French community.
SOURCE: AP.
