Toulouse Gunman Dead

A police siege in the French city of Toulouse has ended with a man suspected of killing seven people now dead, the French interior minister has said.

Police had entered the flat where Mohammed Merah was holed up shortly after 09:30 GMT, after a siege that had lasted 32 hours.

Merah fired at officers and was found dead after jumping from a window.

Merah, 23, was suspected of killing four people outside a Jewish school and three soldiers.

Interior Minister Claude Gueant said officers had thrown grenades and entered by the door and windows of the flat.

After surveying the scene and finding no sign of the suspect, they proceeded to the bathroom, moving slowly as they were wary of booby-traps.

When officers tried to find out if there was anyone in the bathroom, the suspect came out firing several weapons.

Mr Gueant said the suspect was "shooting very violently. The bursts of gunfire were frequent and hard".

Claude Gueant: "Merah jumped through a window while shooting"

Merah then jumped from a window, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground.

Two officers were reported wounded in the final assault.

Mr Gueant said: "A RAID [special police] officer who is used to this kind of thing told me that he had never seen such a violent assault."

Earlier Mr Gueant had said it was unclear whether Merah was still alive, because there had been no contact overnight.

He had said the object had been to take Merah alive.

A number of explosions had been set off overnight to intimidate Merah, officials said.

They said he was armed with a Kalashnikov high-velocity rifle, a mini-Uzi 9mm machine pistol, several handguns and possibly grenades.

Street lights were switched off in the vicinity of the building on Wednesday evening and surrounding areas evacuated.

Merah has said he acted to "avenge Palestinian children".

He claimed to have received al-Qaeda training in Pakistan's Waziristan area, and also said he had been to Afghanistan.

Mr Gueant defended intelligence services for not preventing the attacks, describing Merah as a "lone wolf".

"The domestic intelligence agency tracks a lot of people who are involved in Islamist radicalism. Expressing ideas... is not enough to bring someone before justice," Mr Gueant said.

Christian Etelin, a lawyer who has previously acted for Merah, said his client had violent tendencies.

"There was his religious engagement, an increasing hatred against the values of a democratic society and a desire to impose what he believes is truth," Mr Etelin said.

He also denied earlier reports that Merah had been jailed for explosives offensives in Afghanistan, saying his client was in jail in France for robbery with violence at the time - from December 2007 to September 2009.

The killings took place in and around Toulouse in three separate incidents earlier this month.

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