Toulouse Siege: Gunman Killed In Shootout

A man suspected of murdering seven people in France has been killed by police as he jumped from a window still firing wildly at the end of a 32-hour siege.

Mohammed Merah, 23, was shot in the head after officers stormed his flat where he was holed up since early on Wednesday.

He filmed the three recent attacks in Toulouse and Montauban which claimed the lives of three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi, and three French soldiers , prosecutor Francois Molins said.

Merah claimed to have posted the videos online and police have viewed them.

It comes as al Qaeda linked group Jund al Khilafah, which has claimed responsibility for attacks in Afghanistan and Kazakhstan, said it was behind the shootings in France, according to US monitoring group SITE.

Merah staged a dramatic last stand as he burst out of a bathroom and blasted an automatic weapon at officers, before diving for the window while still shooting.

The gunman, who reportedly told negotiators he wanted to "die with weapons in his hands", was found dead on the ground, according to French interior minister Claude Gueant, who watched the drama while peaking from behind an armoured vehicle outside the flat.

The police unit that carried out the raid "had never seen anything like it before," Mr Gueant said, confirming two officers were injured.

Final negotiations were unsuccessful late on Wednesday after Merah indicated he would not surrender and if there was any attempt to seize him he would kill police, according to the minister who ordered the final raid.

Officers entered the property in the southwestern city of Toulouse, creeping step-by-step around the flat, checking each room carefully before they reached the bathroom when Merah burst out, bombarding them with bullets.

Mr Gueant had earlier said police wanted to capture Merah alive.

A series of explosions, known as flash bangs, were heard at 10:30am (9:30am GMT), marking the beginning the end of the stand-off.

Police, who used special video equipment to search for Merah, had been concerned the property might have been booby-trapped.

Mr Gueant told reporters that Merah came out firing "with extreme violence". Police "tried to protect themselves and fired back".

"Mohammed Merah jumped out the window, gun in hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground," Mr Gueant added. Heavy gunfire was heard at the scene as the raid took place.

The building was surrounded by hundreds of police and Merah had been holed up in the flat since an earlier police assault on Wednesday.

Elite police squads had set off sporadic blasts overnight - some which blew off the flat's shutters - and cut off power to the evacuated building as they tried to persuade the suspect to give himself up. Gas supplies had reportedly been cut on Wednesday morning.

Street lights had also been turned off, making Merah more visible to officers with night vision goggles.

Criminologist Sebastian Roche said many questions now needed to be answered about the decision to move in. He told Sky News: "They intervene in the middle of the night, then they wait 30 hours, then there is a political decision to terminate this very clearly."

Mr Gueant earlier said: "We hope that he is still alive" so he could face justice, adding the gunman told negotiators he wanted to "die with weapons in his hands".

Mr Roche said: "The views of Mr Merah have prevailed over the views of the minister of the interior."

Explaining how politicians can control police tactics in France, he said: "The minister of the interior is the head of all police services... there is no notion of operational autonomy as you have in the UK."

Merah apparently boasted about carrying out the shootings in separate incidents in the past fortnight.

The suspect, a French citizen of Algerian descent, reportedly bragged to negotiators he was trained by al Qaeda on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border .

He was thought to be armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a mini-Uzi submachine pistol and a collection of handguns and when police tried to storm his flat in the early hours of Wednesday, he was reported to have shouted "I can see you" and fired through the letterbox.

Officers tried to negotiate with Merah who said he would surrender on Wednesday afternoon, then at night, and he ended up going back on those pledges altogether.

Mr Molins said the suspect boasted about bringing "France to its knees" and had planned to kill another soldier - prompting the first police raid.

The assault then erupted into a firefight with two police officers hurt as a stand-off developed.

Speaking before Merah's death, Mr Molins said: "He has no regrets, except not having more time to kill more people and he boasts that he has brought France to its knees."

Authorities said he had told negotiators he killed a rabbi and three young children at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday and three French paratroopers - one in Toulouse and two in Montauban - last week.

He claimed he carried out the shootings to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and to protest against the French army's involvement in Afghanistan, as well as a government ban last year on face-covering Islamic veils, officials added.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said authorities "tried everything to ensure he (Merah) was caught alive so he could come to trial but that was not possible".

Mr Sarkozy said an investigation was under way to see if the suspect had any accomplices.

He also said anyone who regularly visits "websites which support terrorism or call for hate or violence will be punished by the law".

And he promised a crackdown on anyone who goes abroad "for the purposes of indoctrination in terrorist ideology".

Mr Molins said the suspect had gone to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region twice and on one occasion was arrested by Afghan police and handed over to US army troops, who put him on a flight back to France.

Video footage has emerged of Merah, and sources said the suspect had been known to the domestic security service for some years.

He had a police record for several minor offences, some involving violence, Mr Gueant told reporters, "but there was no evidence that he was planning such criminal actions".

A lawyer who defended Merah last month on charges of driving without a licence told French television that he had been "gentle" and "courteous" and that he had told him about his trip to Afghanistan.

The lawyer said he had pointed out to Merah that he would therefore, doubtless be under surveillance, and should not commit even the smallest infraction.

Police and prosecutors said they arrested Merah's mother, brother and his brother's girlfriend as part of the inquiry.