BICOM

Following a pre-dawn shootout, French police this morning have surrounded the house of a 24-year-old man, identified as Mohammed Merah, who is suspected of carrying out the Toulouse Jewish school killings.  The man, who according to the French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, is an Algerian national with links to al-Qaeda, is held up in a house in northern Toulouse.

French police began a raid on a house at 3 am local time to arrest suspects in the shooting. Three police officers were reportedly injured in the operation, with one of them shot in the knee.

During the raid the suspect told police that he committed the attack out of a desire to avenge the death of Palestinian children by Israel and is angry at the French military for its operations abroad. Gueant told reporters at the scene that the suspect said he, “belongs to al-Qaeda”.

French authorities declared a nationwide manhunt to find the killer of three children and one adult at the Jewish Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse on Monday. Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his two children Gavriel and Arieh, ages 5 and 4, and Miriam Monsonego, age 7, were shot by a gunman on a stolen motorcycle. The bodies of the four victims arrived in Israel for burial this morning, accompanied by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.

The man was known to authorities for having spent time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Gueant. His brother has been arrested on suspicion of aiding him.