Toulouse Shooter Set to Surrender - Report

French police officers cordon off the street during a raid on a house to arrest suspects who allegedly killed children and a rabbi on 19 March 2012 at a `Ozar Hatorah` Jewish school, in Toulouse, France, 21 March, 2012. EPA/BGNES

Mohammed Merah, a 24-year-old Frenchman who is suspected for the shocking murders of three soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi, is expected to surrender later on Wednesday, according to French Interior Minister Claude Gueant.

"The suspect told me - and I hope he told me the truth -- that he will surrender at 12 pm," Gueant said, as cited by CNN.

"He claims to be a jihadist and says he belongs to al Qaeda. He wanted to avenge the Palestinian children and take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions," he clarified.

The suspect has reportedly thrown his handgun out of the window after being surrounded by hundreds of police officers in a residential neighborhood of northern Toulouse.

Three policemen have been wounded in the police raid, which is still ongoing.

A paratrooper out of uniform was recently shot dead in a residential area of Toulouse, while two soldiers were killed and a third wounded as they used a cash machine in the nearby town of Montauban Thursday. All three - of North African and Caribbean origin - were shot by a man on a scooter.

The latest incident occurred Monday morning at the Ozar Hatorah jewish school in Toulouse, after a gunman opened fire on people waiting at a school drop-off point and then fled on a motorbike, killing a 30-years old teacher and three children aged 6, 3 and 10.

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