Explosions at shooting siege site

Riot police set off explosions outside an apartment building in an effort to force the surrender of a gunman who boasted of bringing France “to its knees” with an al-Qaida-linked terror spree that killed seven people.

As the stand-off dragged into a second day, hundreds of heavily armed police, some in body armour, cordoned off the five-story building in Toulouse where the 24-year-old suspect, Mohamed Merah, had been holed up.