A man claiming al-Qaeda terrorist links took up to four hostages at a bank in the French city of Toulouse on Wednesday, according to police sources.
The man fired a shot at the CIC bank in the southern French city, close to where self-proclaimed al-Qaeda Islamist gunman Mohammed Merah went on a shooting rampage at a Jewish school in March, taking several hostages including the bank’s manager.
He then reportedly contacted elite police hostage unit RAID, themselves responsible for shooting Merah dead following his killing spree that left three children and one of their fathers dead at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school, to negotiate directly with them.
A statement from Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet confirmed “we’re taking measures so we can start a dialogue” with the suspected terrorist.
The scene of the incident is just five hundred metres from Merah’s former flat in Toulouse’s Cote Pavee district, in the east of the city. Merah shot three soldiers in a separate incident ahead of the school shootings in March and was himself host dead by the RAID team, following a 32-hour standoff at his flat. He is reported to have confessed to the killings to police present before his death.
This latest incident has drawn immediate apparent parallels with what was then deemed France’s worst terrorist attacks in years, which has seemingly sparked off a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in the Toulouse and Marseille area.
The surrounding neighbourhood to the scene of the hostage-taking has been cordoned off and neighbouring buildings were evacuated, including children from a local school. The gunman is yet to have been identified and no injuries have as yet been reported.
The Paris headquarters of France’s second-largest retail bank has confirmed it is contact with Toulouse police regarding the incident, but would not issue any further comment.
Despite Merah’s alleged links with al-Qaeda, police at the time of the incident claimed they had no uncovered any operational ties between the Islamic radical and the terrorist organisation, although they did confirm he had undertaken training initiatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Despite French television reporting the gunman professing links to the terror Islamic organisation, police were not as yet able to confirm these reports.