About 300 French police officers surrounded a house in Toulouse early Wednesday morning, trying to coax the suspect in a series of deadly shootings — including one at a Jewish school — to give himself up.
Soon after special operations police mounted their raid at 3:30 a.m shots rang out from inside, wounding two officers, police said.
As the standoff stretched to its fifth hour, the 24-year-old suspect showed no signs of surrendering.
He is accused of killing seven people in the last 10 days: a rabbi and three children at the Jewish school on Monday, and three soldiers of North African origin who had recently returned from Afghanistan in two earlier incidents.
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.” He apparently is part of 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 minister did not say how he knew this.
France has about 4,000 troops supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The government has said it will pull them out by 2013.
The shooting spree, which targeted minorities, prompted France to put the region on scarlet alert, the highest level in the country.
In the attack at the private Jewish school Ozar Hartorah, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet and driving a motor scooter pulled up and shot a teacher and three children — two of them his own young sons — in the head.
The other victim, the daughter of the school’s director, was killed in front of her father.
Police said the same guns were used in the other two attacks, according to CNN.
On March 11, a soldier was on his motorbike when a helmeted man on another motorcycle shot and killed him.
On Thursday, two other soldiers were shot dead and another injured by a black-clad man wearing a motorcycle helmet in the southwestern French city of Montauban, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Toulouse.
Police launched an intense manhunt, and on Wednesday night, zeroed in on the house, located about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the Jewish school.
Throughout the standoff, French President Nicolas Sarkozy remained in constant communication with the interior minister.
Meanwhile, the bodies of the four victims arrived in Israel where they will be buried in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning.
“Today, all Israel is in pain and mourning over the deaths of innocent children and a dedicated father,” Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told the families as the coffins were lowered from the plane.
The decision to send the bodies to Israel was made because of their faith, according to the Consistory of Paris, a group representing Jewish communities. France has one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe.
As practicing Jews, their burial in the birthplace of Judaism ensures that their remains will not be tampered with, the consistory added. Forty percent of French practicing Jews are buried in Israel, it said.
The teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, was born and raised in Bordeaux, in southwestern France, but pursued his religious studies in Israel. He married and had children, before returning to teach at the Toulouse school, the consistory said.
His sons, Gabriel, 4, and Arieh, 5, will be buried with him.
The other victim, 7-year-old Miriam Monsonego, will be laid to rest at another cemetery.
