Via euronews:
In a drama gripping France five weeks before a presidential election, some 300 police have laid siege since Wednesday to the five-storey house in a suburb of the prosperous industrial town in a bid to capture the shooter, Mohamed Merah.
The French citizen of Algerian origin told negotiators he had killed three soldiers last week and four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and because of French army involvement in Afghanistan.
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Merah, who has told police negotiators he had accepted a mission from al Qaeda after receiving training in the lawless border area of Pakistan, had already identified another soldier and two police officers he wished to kill, investigators 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,” Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins, part of the anti-terrorist unit leading the investigation, told a news conference.
The gunman negotiated with police all Wednesday, promising to give himself up and saying that he did not want to die.
“He’s explained that he’s not suicidal, he doesn’t have the soul of a martyr and he prefers to kill but to stay alive himself,” the prosecutor said.more here(source)
