French gun suspect 'wants to die'

A gunman suspected of seven killings in southern France has told police laying siege to his flat in Toulouse that he wants to die "weapons in hand", Interior Minister Claude Gueant says.

Mr Gueant said there had been no contact overnight with Mohammed Merah and it was not certain he was alive.

Police set off regular explosions overnight to increase the pressure on 23-year-old Merah.

He is suspected of killing seven people in three separate attacks.

The siege is now in its second day.

Mr Gueant said: "We have one priority: to take him alive so that he can surrender to face justice. We hope he is still alive."

However, he said it was "quite strange that he did not react" to the explosions that were set off overnight to intimidate Merah.

"We heard two shots, we don't know what they were," Mr Gueant said.

"Despite redoubled efforts throughout the night, there has been no contact with him."

The first blasts, set off late on Wednesday, had prompted deputy mayor Jean-Pierre Havrin to tell local media that "negotiations have finished and the assault has begun".

However, sources from the French interior ministry later said this was only the beginning of an operation to put pressure on Merah.

"[The blasts] were moves to intimidate the gunman, who seems to have changed his mind and does not want to surrender," interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told Reuters.

Didier Martinez, of the SGP police union, told Associated Press the siege could go on for hours as police were counting on Merah weakening with fatigue.

Merah has given conflicting messages about surrendering.

Anti-terror chief Francois Molins had said: "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."

Officials say Merah is 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.

The five-storey block of flats has been evacuated, and police also moved residents from nearby buildings.

Police had surrounded Merah's building after two officers were shot at when they tried to get into his flat early on Wednesday morning.

Elsewhere in the city, police are hunting for accomplices and have detained several members of Merah's family.

His mother was taken to the scene on Wednesday in the hope that she could persuade him to surrender, but she told police that she had no influence over her son.

Mr Molins said on Wednesday that Merah had planned to kill again.

"If he's telling the truth, he would have left his house this morning and he would have once again killed any soldier that he came across," he said.

Mr Molins said the suspect had expressed no regret for the killings, but had said he wanted to kill more people and "bring France to its knees".

Merah has said he acted to "avenge Palestinian children" and said he would give himself up.

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

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.

Emotional funeral

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

On 11 March, a soldier was shot and killed while waiting to see a man about selling his motorcycle.

Days later, two soldiers were shot and killed and a third was wounded while waiting at a cash machine.

Then earlier this week, three children and an adult were shot and killed outside a Jewish school.

The four Jewish victims were buried in an emotional funeral in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, President Nicolas Sarkozy attended a memorial for the three murdered soldiers at a military base in Montauban near Toulouse.