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Doubts raised over decision to storm French gunman’s apartment

TOULOUSE, France — Grave questions over whether political decisions overrode tactical necessity in dealing with the siege of the French terrorist and accused multiple-murderer Mohammed Merah will be raised in France, after the first attempt to arrest him and the end of the siege both appeared to have been bungled.

Killed at the end of the 33-hour siege Thursday morning, Merah fell from a balcony after apparently rushing past RAID police commandos who had stormed his apartment.

He had hosed them with automatic gunfire when he burst from a bathroom in his Toulouse flat.

Merah’s near escape indicates that he had planned to spring an ambush.

Claude Gueant, the French interior minister, revealed to journalists after the operation, which he watched from behind an armored vehicle, that secret cameras installed in the apartment failed to find the murderer.

Merah had killed seven people including three children and sparked France’s biggest manhunt in more than a decade.

Rather than wait until he had been found, officials said they could not tell if he was dead or alive. This, before the final raid was launched, followed a night in which his flat had been repeatedly attacked with “flash-bang” grenades to disorientate him.

Rather than give away his location, the battle-hardened veteran of al Qaeda camps in Waziristan, Pakistan and combat in southern Afghanistan, laid low — avoiding even detection by audio devices.

Known to be armed with an AK47 assault rifle and a 9mm pistol, and possibly an Uzi “machine pistol,” Merah, who had shown calculated malice in killing his victims by shooting them at point blank range in the head, waited for the next move by police.

In his last communication with officers Wednesday night, he said he would shoot anyone who approached the apartment.

At around 11 a.m. Thursday, commandos was ordered into action — before they had been able to identify where, or whether, he was in the apartment. They stormed in through the front door and windows after the shutters and glass had been removed.

The team could not find Merah in any of the rooms before he burst out of the bathroom “firing madly” in an attack which “shocked” some of the RAID team, who are part of a special operations tactical unit of the French National Police. One policeman was wounded in the foot, another suffered shock during the assault, Gueant said.

But the official will have to answer the question: Why did he order the operation so suddenly, thereby denying authorities the chance to gather more information about Merah’s location and state of health?

Three policemen had already been lightly injured in an earlier attempt to arrest him at 3 a.m. the day before.

Gueant, who as interior minister had operational control over all the police, is part of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s political team in his bid for re-election next month.

Trailing his rival Francois Hollande in the polls, Sarkozy declared an end to campaigning while the hunt had been on for Merah. His interior minister was sent to Toulouse to take personal command of the operations — but was never far from the television cameras.

The French media is likely to want him to account for the bungled arrest at the start of the siege and demand an explanation of why Merah was not put under surveillance. He could have been contained in his apartment rather than risk the lives of officers in a direct approach.