Man claiming to be French shooter vows to post videos online

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

A neighbour looks at the scene during a raid on a house to arrest suspects in the killings of three children and a rabbi on Monday at a Jewish school, in Toulouse March 21, 2012. REUTERS Photo

French police said today they were probing a call made to a news channel by a man claiming to be the killer of seven, who said footage of the attacks would soon be on the Internet.
 
The call to the France 24 news channel came just two hours before police corned a suspect who made exactly the same claims as the caller -- that he was linked to Al-Qaeda and his crimes were revenge for Palestinian deaths.
 
"He said he was affiliated with Al-Qaeda and that it was only the beginning... that everything was filmed... and that it would be on the web shortly," the journalist who took the call at France 24 told AFP.
 
"Either I will go to prison with my head held high or I will die with a smile," he said, according to France 24's Ebba Kalondo.
 
On Monday, officials said witnesses to an attack on a Jewish school in which a religious studies teacher and three children were killed saw the gunman wearing a video camera in a harness on his chest.
 
The call came at midnight local time on Tuesday, just two hours before police special forces in the southwestern city of Toulouse surrounded an apartment block where a suspected Islamist militant was holed up.
 
Officials said suspect Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old French citizen of Algerian descent who has visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, bragged of being in Al-Qaeda and said he acted to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children.

Police sources said investigators were taking the 11-minute call to France 24 seriously, but could not confirm it was the same man.
 
The operation in Toulouse was launched after three attacks in the past nine days in which a scooter-riding killer gunned down seven people, including three Jewish children and three off-duty soldiers.