PARIS—The death of Mohamed Merah, the suspected French killer who met his end Thursday in a barrage of special-forces gunfire, left officials piecing together how he became the alleged homegrown terrorist behind the most violent attacks on French soil in almost two decades.
On Thursday, a more complete picture emerged of Mr. Merah, who police say conducted seven point-blank killings in and around Toulouse over the previous 11 days.
Over recent years, according to the emerging accounts, he appeared to be looking for a place to belong—seeking twice, without success, to join the French armed services.
He had also, according to his own account, sought to belong to al Qaeda. On Wednesday, as he was pinned inside a Toulouse apartment by special forces, he told a police negotiator he had trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan. But Western intelligence agencies couldn't verify those claims. France confirms his trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the U.S. put him on its no-fly list.
Investigators have recovered what they say are "explicit" videos of the attacks that they say Mr. Merah made using a camera strapped to his body. In a film police say is from the shooting of a soldier March 11, the shooter is heard to say: "You kill my brothers, now I'm killing you."
In his alleged attacks, Mr. Merah appeared to follow al Qaeda's founding cause of killing "Jews and crusaders." He is suspected of having shot dead three soldiers from regiments that had dispatched troops to Afghanistan, and of having opened fire on a Jewish school in Toulouse, leaving four dead, including three children.
On Wednesday, police say he told his interlocutor that he had "brought France down on its knees," expressing regret that he had failed to kill more people.
"He appears to have drifted into a parallel world where he picked and chose elements to build himself a new identity," said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor in the Middle East department at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.
French officials had hoped to detain Mr. Merah, 23 years old, alive. For more than a day, they surrounded the Toulouse apartment building where he was holed up, at one point extracting a promise that he would surrender himself.
He didn't, and late Thursday morning, 33 hours into the standoff, French special forces moved in on Mr. Merah. He came out of a bathroom, shooting an automatic weapon with "extreme violence," Interior Minister Claude Guéant said. The suspect jumped out of a window, Mr. Guéant said, firing as he fell. Police returned fire in a barrage heard around the neighborhood. Mr. Merah was found dead on the ground, a bullet in the head, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said their probe continued as they attempted to determine whether the suspect had accomplices. Late Thursday, his older brother, Abdelkader Merah, and their mother were still in police custody. Prosecutors didn't say on what grounds.
Mr. Merah's older brother had been on the radar of French antiterrorist agencies because he allegedly helped Islamic militants to travel illegally from Europe to Iraq in 2007, police officials said. The brother was never prosecuted or charged, they said.
Cellphone numbers for the older Mr. Merah and his mother appeared to be disconnected. No legal representatives could be reached.
Born in the Toulouse area, Mr. Merah grew up in a family of Algerian origin, with his divorced mother and four siblings, according to Marie-Christine and Christian Etelin, whose law firm defended him over the years. He attended a local school, they say, and trained as a car-body repair technician.
Prosecutors initially said Mr. Merah was 24 years old but later amended his age to 23.
Mr. Merah was brought before a judge for the first time at age 16, for allegedly throwing a stone at a bus. Because he was a juvenile, he was given a citation but wasn't charged, Ms. Etelin said. Over the next few years, she said, he was cited 15 times in total, including on allegations that he stole a scooter, sold a motorbike that was reported stolen, fought with a rival group at an ice rink and insulted a teacher. He wasn't sent to prison because he was a minor, she said.
In 2008, Mr. Merah told Mr. Etelin that he wanted to sign up in the French army "to defend the French flag." He showed up at a recruitment center but failed to pass evaluations because of his police record, said French army spokesman Col. Bruno Lafitte.
Soon after, Mr. Merah was sent to the Saint-Sulpice La Pointe prison, near Toulouse, to serve an 18-month conviction for snatching an elderly woman's handbag.
Police said Mr. Merah may have become more politicized in detention.
The website of France's Justice Ministry says the prison, with a 102-inmate capacity, is for low-security inmates. Ms. Etelin said she doubted he would have been radicalized at such a facility. Attempts to reach Saint-Sulpice prison weren't successful.
After his release, Mr. Merah made the first of what French officials say were two formative trips—one to Afghanistan in 2010, and Pakistan in 2011.
French officials said he went to Afghanistan by himself, without relying on any of the known Islamic networks who often help Westerners reach to the area. But he told his negotiator Wednesday that he went there with the aim of fighting alongside Taliban forces, police say.
During his trip to Afghanistan, in late 2010, Mr. Merah was arrested by Afghan police during a routine identity check in Kandahar and he was put on a flight to Europe, prosecutors say.
After the incident, Mr. Merah was added to a U.S. no-fly list of suspected terrorists, according to people familiar with the matter. France added his name to a watch list of suspected Islamic militants.
Counterterrorism officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which manages the U.S. no-fly list, also had collected information on Mr. Merah before the recent shootings in France, including the 2010 encounter, U.S. officials said.
Later in 2010, Mr. Merah made another bid to join the army, this time applying to enroll in the Foreign Legion. "He came over but left even before the start of the evaluation program," said legion spokesman Lt. Col. Frédéric Daguillion
From mid-August to mid-October 2011, Mr. Merah traveled to Pakistan, according to prosecutors. But he fell ill with Hepatatis A, they say.
Returning home, he was interrogated by French antiterrorism investigators.
"He said he had traveled to Pakistan for tourism, showing photos of his trip," Paris prosecutor François Molins said Thursday.
In recent months, Mr. Merah appeared to have returned to a more quiet life, living officially off of a €475 monthly government allowance.
Grigor Harutyunyan, a 16-year-old who lives in a building where Mr. Merah's mother was once registered, said he knows Mr. Merah as Momo. Mr. Harutyunyan said he last saw the suspect two months ago at a wrestling class in Toulouse. For the first time, he said, Mr. Merah had grown a beard. But he didn't speak about religion.
"He was never aggressive, or violent either," said Mr. Harutyunyan.
A contrasting picture was presented by Mr. Molins, the prosecutor, who said that during the siege, Mr. Merah told police that he had financed the acquisition of his arsenal of guns by conducting robberies.
On Wednesday, Mr. Molins described Mr. Merah as a lonesome man "who could spend long hours at home, watching video footage of decapitation scenes." He didn't provide further details.
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