France shooting: Toulouse Jewish School assault causing 4 casualties

According to the police sources, a gunman on a scooter has opened direct fire on a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse, killing of three children and a teacher.

A young boy was critically wounded in the attack outside the Ozar Hatorah School in the north-east of the city. Police claim there are parallel with the deaths of three soldiers in two different mishaps in the same area of France last week. The whole three - of North African source- were shot by a man on a scooter.

A paratrooper out of uniform was gunshot dead in an uptown area of Toulouse just over a week earlier, whilst two soldiers were murdered and a third injured as they utilized a cash-point in the town of Montauban, some 29 miles (46km) away, on Thursday.

But President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has out from the scene, said it, is "much in advance" to identify if there is a confirm link.

"Whatever takes place," he said, "faced with this type of toll, we can say that the French Republic all together has been targeted by this terrible incidence."

The grand rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, who is journeying to the south-western city, said he was "shocked" and "astonished" by what had occurred.

Israel also said it was terrified, adding that it expected the French officials "to shed full light on this incidence and bring the executors to justice".

Monday's target taken place as children and their parents were arriving at the school, in the Joliment area of the city.

A teacher at the school, considered to be aged 30, and his two children, aged three and six, are reported to have been murdered.

The third child executed was aged between eight and 10 years old and belonged to another teacher at the school, French media report.

The gunman shot at the lot he could observe, children and grown persons, and some children were pursued into the school," local investigator Michel Valet said.

The Toulouse-based La Depeche newspaper said the gunfire happen at the unload point for the nursery- and primary-age children of the school.

It said the executioner was armed with two weapons, one of which was the same .45 calibre weapon as that fired in the assault on the paratroopers in Montauban.

AFP news agency said the gunman primarily utilized a 9-mm weapon but it blocked so he switched to a .45 calibre weapon.

A news reporter in Toulouse, Christopher Bockman, told the BBC the city was in lockdown as police pursued the attacker.

Some 60 police personals, as well as anti-terrorist specialists, had previously been drafted in to help inspect the assaults on the soldiers.

They had been observing for a gunman who was attacking soldiers.

But if the fresh attack does showed to be connected, then it advises the method has altered and, if so, police are observing for a risky serial killer, our correspondent adds.