Toulouse police are preparing to storm the house in which an al Qaeda gunman hunted as the motorcyclist in black for the Jewish school murders is still barricaded. A 24-year old of Algerian descent, Mohammed Ahmed Merahin, stated after shooting at police who surrounded the house that he belonged to al Qaeda and trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
His brother and his brother's girlfriend were arrested as his suspected accomplice. Three police were injured in the initial round of fire from the building after the police raid began at dawn Wednesday, March 21, Negotiations for the surrender of the hunted man failed. Neighboring buildings have been evacuated for the police assault on the building.
The man holding out was hunted for the murders of the teacher and three children at the Toulouse Jewish school Ozar Hatorah and also two French paratroopers in nearby Montauban last Thursday. He was under police suspicion after that attack but not arrested. He was active in the extremist Islamic organization called Forsane Alizze which was only outlawed in February although it was long identified with al Qaeda.
The Jewish teacher, Yonathan Sandler, 30, his sons Arieh, 3 and Gavriel, 6 and the Ozar Hatorah principal’s daughter, Miriam Monstango, aged 8, whom he shot dead Monday at the Jewish school, were laid to rest at the Har Menuhot cemetery in Jerusalem Wednesday. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe flew to Israel with the victims and attended the funerals as a mark of French-Israeli solidarity in the face of he terrible murders.
The dawn raid in Toulouse was accompanied by security police swoops on extremist Muslim hideouts across France.
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