Scooter Murderer(s) Terrorises Southern France...

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Children and teacher killed in Toulouse and last week French Paras gunned down in Montauban. Not known if the two incidents are connected at this stage.

The mainstream news is only carrying official confirmation that an assault has begun (and they don't say by whom, hence my assumption based on Brirish model that this would be a task for SF in light of the probable arsenal - whoever has gone in, I still salute them).

Where are you getting running sit reps from?

Le Monde live feed. Apparently they used the bombs to intimidate, Interior Ministry confirms no assault taking place at the moment. Police source says that did blow the door.

here if you speak French

they did blow

Police car with sirens on passes the journalists, bit odd as it's been deadly quiet there til then (bar the three explosions).

The siege enters its second day.

I doubt that there will be authoritative briefings during a police operation (we've seen how easily different officials can give different - though at the time apparently reliable - versions). I can think of various possibilities now. All we can do is wait and see what else happens; and hope that no more soldiers or police are shot.

well he is dead, gun fight with police with 3 injured.

he jumped out of the window

Brief BBC report of his death. They were trying to take him alive, but he jumped out of a window whilst still firing. Horrendous. There are however, mercifully, no reports of casualties amongst the police who were conducting the operation.

I hope he was acting alone, and there are not further individuals trained in Afghanistan/Waziristan who are planning similar atrocities.

Evil little coward. Hope there is a special place in hell for him

Tbh I am bit that 15 RAID special service guys couldn't manage to capture him alive-or rather, it's the strategy that seems to have failed, not them per se.

Apparently he said last night (which wasn't reported til after the assault took place today) that he has no plans to surrender and that he wants to die fighting and kill as many policemen as he can. Therefore, while before he was saying that he will surrender and they didn't want him to kill himself if he realised that the sleeping gas is being pumped into the flat/didn't want the negotiator to lose his trust, when it became apparent that he will fight to death...why didn't they try with the gas? More stunt grenades?

As it was, he came out of the bathroom brandishing guns, shooting at the RAID guys who took cover on the balcony and then a sniper killed him.

And the RAID commander is saying that he never encountered such an assault as this guy's. One of the commandos was treated for shock

I know, I know, it's easy to criticise from behind the laptop screen, and it's great that there were no police killed, but still...

He deserved to be judged and thrown into jail for the rest of his life, instead of dying as a brave martyr (in his mind) as he wanted.

It's over now but they had arrested the brother (it was his email to the first victim that caught them)) and there might be some insight into what the bloody hell was going on their lives for them to lose sight of any humanity in all of this.

Winny - if this young person was firing two guns he would have killed police personnel before they could overpower him. They have a duty to protect themselves as well so they would have taken him out just to stop him. How long could the seige have gone on for?

Horrible horrible and incomprehensible.

Yes, you're right, giveitago, it's just that I really wanted him to be properly punished for what he has done.

My sarky remark about one commando being treated for shock was misplaced as well I was in a very bad mood for other reasons when I wrote that post.

Over all, they did a good job.

Those poor people who got killed and their families