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Subscribe to RSSA man claiming to be a member of al-Qaida is holding several people hostage in a bank in Toulouse, France. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Updated at 11:06 ET: TOULOUSE, France -- Armed police have captured alive a man who took four hostages in a bank in the southwestern French city of Toulouse on Wednesday, officials said.
His captives, who included the bank's manager, were released after an ordeal lasting several hours, police said.
The man, who had claimed to be a member of al-Qaida, attacked the CIC branch at about 10:30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. ET) and fired a shot after an attempted armed robbery apparently went wrong, police said.
He was lightly injured during his arrest, which came at around 4:00 p.m. local time (11:00 a.m. ET) and followed a series of gunshots that were heard at the scene.
Unidentified authorities told the Associated Press the gunman had psychiatric problems in the past and claimed he was acting for religious reasons.
In March, 23-year-old Mohamed Merah - an al-Qaida-inspired gunman - shot dead three soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish children in the same city.
Earlier, French television news channel BFM said the hostage-taker had demanded the presence of RAID, the national elite police unit that had to take down Merah in a shootout at his apartment.
Prosecutor: All French shooting victims shot in the head at close range
Bruno Martin / AP
Elite police officers from the GIPN brigade arrive at a bank in Toulouse, France, where a man took hostages and fired a shot.
Officials at the French Interior Ministry and CIC bank declined to comment.
Reuters and NBC News contributed to this report.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for more details.
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Further proof that multi-culturalism works.
There should be a program in ALL WESTERN countries that those wanting to emigrate to a new country have to go through. They should be forced to attend language and culture classes and then test in the language of the country that they want to accept them.
If they are not willing to do that, send them home and let them settle their problems with their home countries. Way too many people are going West in order to take the benefits of the liberal social system and not give a damn about the people that are supporting them.
The man in question alleges being a member of Al Qaeda- took 4 hostages-one of whom is the Director of the Bank. He will only deal with the Elite police in negotiations. Being AQ gives some imbecilles -poseurs the Breivik edge.
Good morning David.
Send in some nice pate and pork sausages with a little wine to wash it down. ;-)
Yeah, lace the wine with sleeping pills, he falls asleep and end of story.
Now watch, this Btownrats guy is going to troll me with nothing good to say. He's got nothing better to do. Stay tuned....................(tapping my toe.....)
The religion of peace at it again.
MOSinEUR
Your ideas will not fly in Europe. The bleeding liberals will just shout out how unfair we are treating the Muslim. While the very same muslim are more than willing to stab Western civilization in the back.
Arabic Muslims will never assimilate into Western Society Period. We think so differently.
Western Society believes in freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, equal right for women
Muslim society believes in freedom of speech for the clerics only, Freedom of Islam for all (or death if you do not convert), and submission of the women to the men.
Let`s see how the new pres of France handles this one.Maybe this guy is AQ maybe not.But France has a huge problem with a part of its Muslim population.They are terrorists whose allegiance is not to France but to the mass murdering jihad sharia terrorists who are part of an international network.As for this terrorist I hope they send this beast a special sandwich ...which blows him to smithereens.If he hurts any of his hostages..Well the French will have to decide how to handle this 5th column of demons who have entered their country...I imagine there will be pressure to take off the white gloves and go after them( i.e the Muslim extremists) with all the force necessary to eliminate this cancer that is eating up their country!.We shall see ...
The beautiful country of France will continue to pay the price for allowing these muslims to immigrate. These people will never assimilate into any kind of civilized society and will always try to impose thier hate filled, backward,corrupt religion and beliefs on the entire world. Wake up France! Crack down on every muslim, and if they show no interest in assimilation send the scum bags home.
Religion is an idea and the interpretations vary. But stupidity is a characteristic found in every single person on Earth, be it the greatest scientist on earth, the most pious cleric on earth, or the regular village idiot. I am amazed how this person specifically targeted Toulouse and wanted the presence of the RAID like Mohammed Merah had. What amazes me further is how quick he was to point out that he was a member of Al-Qaeda. This seems like a wannabe terrorist who saw this as a win-win situation in which he gets featured in the headlines either way. I am glad my parents did not emigrate to France like the rest of the Algerian population did during the Civil War. The people who did emigrate to France rode their tractors on their way to the airport. Yes, they are rural people and the people of rural Algeria are hard to deal with and more like the people of Yemen than the Turkish and Berber descendants of Algiers, Oran, and Constantine. When these people arrive in France, they are shocked with the hospitality of the French and use that to their advantage to get 'freebies'. They are not used to living in densely populated areas so their children live most of their lives outside and skipping school. That drastically raises the chances of radical or criminal influence on these kids. They are manipulated like I have said before and I will say again. Manipulated for the objectives of a more powerful figure who is not always seen. I can't believe how stupid, ignorant, and easily manipulable people are, taking it as far as killing innocent people and staging a bank robbery in the name of a group that would kill him on sight, seeing as Mohamed Merrah was a huge enthusiast of Western Culture, sporting Hip-Hop clothing, blasting rap music in his new French-made car, basically acting as anyone else would, until he took an unsuspected turn to radicalism. I pray for France and I pray for their people as more and more of my compatriots flock to the country in the hopes of becoming rich. Not living a good life, but becoming rich and sending money back home. I hope this guy learns his lesson and other people will take this as an example of what happens when you turn to radicalism (AKA STUPIDITY). Violence solves nothing.
I have never seen such a building of hatred towards Islam in Europe as I have in the last few years. Europeans who used to be for providing refuge for the poor and oppressed from the Middle East are now regretting it.
I suspect that eventually the Europeans will start to fight back and Allah help the moslems then. The old story of do not bite the hand that feeds you is really starting to take effect. If you moslems really want to take Europe, just keep up with the huge families and lay low. Keep this BS up and you can easily end up being "cleansed" from Europe like the Jews were about 80 years ago.
Liberal people can take quite a bit, but should this BS keep up, the Liberals will turn radical very quickly.
There is a hell of a lot of difference between the poor and oppressed and individuals who devote themselves to mass-murder of innocent people.
This has become a major problem in non-Muslim nations. There are limits for tolerating Islamic radical and terrorist craps all over the world.
When most don't care for religion much these days, followers of Islamic cult, especially Sunnis, are fast marching backwards to their seventh century desert tribal days of rapings, lootings, killings and genocides of non-Muslims.
We see Muslims inventing problems in most of the non-Muslim nations.
See the actions of earlier al-Qaida Islamic religious mad person/animal in France itself and this person!
@Lenny: Sorry, but the Muslims, or Christians, Jews, Buddhists, or any other religion will not give up their religion because science. Religion is based on faith. The Muslims, of any of these religious groups, for sure won't give up their beliefs. They are hell bent on converting or killing all the "infidels" they can.
@Lenny12, you could not be further from the truth. Christianity has been going on for THOUSANDS of years, and even with all the technology we currently possess we've only been able to get to the moon once. I highly, HIGHLY, doubt that technology is going to prove 'religion' wrong. The Bible clearly talks about how there will be uprisings over false religions. France will revolt, and then implode, before it became Muslim to anywhere near that magnitude. The whole world, muslim or not, knows that Islam is not but a promotion of hatred. You may be atheist, or even agnostic, (something tells me you are the former), but you will be in the minority when Muslims attempt (once again, and failing) to take over the world.
@thevaliantx123 - you wrote ""...even with all the technology we currently possess we've only been able to get to the moon once."
are you serious, you think only once? Over 6 separate occasions, a total of 12 Americans have landed on the moon. On 12 other occasions, un-manned craft have landed on the moon between the Soviets & Americans. And countless other occasions have had both manned and un-manned missions orbit the moon including countries other than the old USSR & the US.
Praise Allah.
Allah is furious!
In some Muslim nations like Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and others, Muslims are killing each other!
@nothing new here, don't be a troll. You don't even know what 'Allah' means.
thevaliantx123: Don't worry.
Many Muslims, especially Saudi and Paki, don't know what Allah means either!
None has seen that Allah till now!
Mosineur :you hit the nail square on the head. Yes: The official language of the country should be the only one that is spoken. That way there can be no doubt what is being said and no doubt what is expected to immigrate to the new country.
Yes, I totally agree. Like English spoken here.
Why aren't the moderate Muslims speaking out against this? Funny, they never speak up. I wonder if there really are any moderate Muslims.
We cannot speak out against Islam in the USA either, it offends Obama and his followers.
@Greg: Well then I'll just keep quiet like all the "moderate" Muslims do. I'll probably be accussed of being a racist bigot hater if I say anything.
Maybe Moderate muslims leave in fear on what the Radicals might do, So they be quite.
...stupid post greg.....real stupid
Watch out France. Obama is calling in a drone strike.
Better than that the gunman got his weapon from "Fast and Furious".................Holder is destroying the paperwork as we speak.
In the name of Islam, we declare it a Criminal organization.
And now you know why, Greece sent every Muslim OUT of the nation back to Turkey a century ago.
And a Centry later, thanks to the Liberals, "THEY ALL RETURNED !" HaHaHa ! LOL....
Obama/Biden "We love Islam"
Doubt the guy is really a member of Al Qaida. I'd ask to see his ID card.
Update: France has just surrendered Paris to the Taliban.
Which place next?
Lorraine just fell.
Who made the Taliban? The US of course.
Fouad1233: Saudi and Paki killers, who only did raping, looting, stealing, killing and genocides since the birth of Islamic cult, became members of Taliban, al-Qaida, MB and other Islamic militant outfits!
Here in the USA we are held hostage BY the banks
Thank goodness this happened in France where there are great strict gun control laws, imagine if this crazy guy had a gun... ohh wait.
Now I remember, thats right, criminals and terrorists are already going to break the law, so they don't follow gun control laws.
They get their guns from the "Fast and Furious" gun program run by the DOJ.
Its time to play Cowboys and mooslims.
Sniper- One shot one kill!!!!!
Mugtech, is it a bank or the local unions bankrupting your town? I know the answer in my city where 1/2 of all tax dollars go to retired wokers for benefit and pensions. Your city or town may have the banks taking hostages and stealing your money.
Are there no laws, human rights, "love", "peace" and other good things for Islamic radicals and terrorists?
Are they again to be read from right to left and understood from upside down?
Al Quaida will be robbing neighborhood convenience stores next. Maybe snatch some old ladies' purses.
They started off as lowball sludge with home made weapons and an attitude. Now they are just vestigial members of a failed movement.
Oh, Muslims have an attitude. Their Koran helps feed that. But the ones who are not terrorists probably won't do much more than be their usual racist and religious self-righteous group they always have been.
I would think they will eventually tire of their hidden agenda and their pre-programmed hostility against others who are not members of their group.
How long can any ordinary human being put that much negative energy into something that is obviously hostile and wrong? I suppose we will find out.
Flylowguy, thousands of years... so far.
But in those past thousands of years they weren't crashing planes into buildings, and they didn't have the worldwide opposition like they do now.
Maybe I'm just dreaming. Maybe it IS hopeless.
Long enough to blow themselves up.
Moderate muslims? Where?
Maybe I live under a rock, but, I have yet to see a prominent Mus-Cleric step forward and aggressively condemn 'Al and the boy's'
Seems to me that if I was pegged as being something that I disagreed with due to association, I would go out of my way to distance myself (unless secretly I leaned that way)
Is it fear of retaliation or does it go against their grain to 'Lie' to Infidels (hey-that's us) about condemning terrorist activities.
Who's fault is it when we are the only ones voicing disaproval??????? (more ??? to drive the point) (kind of like bold but more subtle)
The news report refuses to say the man is a member of al-Qaida even after he said he was. "he claims to be a member of al-Quida", I don't understand why they try to protect these people.
I don't know about multiculutralism but I would like to ensure every citizen is not a zealout supporter of an organization dedicated to destroying anyone who does not think like them. I mean as bad as some racist and radical groups in the United States are most of them don't actively cause acts of terrorism in their nation. Alqaida and like organizations should be outlawed and radical muslims who support the ideologies of such groups should be expelled from France.
This doesn't sound like your typical Taliban tatic here.
I thought the story would read that he took hostages because there were no Francs in the bank. He found out all had been given to Greece, Spain and Italy for their bail-outs.
Religion of peace...blah blah blah...
Religion of "pieces"!
Good morning France, welcome to hell with our muslims neighbors...