Mohamed Merah, 24, is suspected of shooting three children and a rabbi Monday in the southwestern city of Toulouse at a Jewish school. He also shot three French soldiers of north African descent in two separate events on March 11 and 15.
According to Reuters, he was tracked down with the IP address he used to contact the first soldier he shot, saying he was interested in buying his motorcycle. His mother's IP address, which he has been using, was already being monitored by French authorities because of his alleged radical Islamist beliefs.
Three hundred police officers are currently surrounding the four-story building in a Toulouse suburb, where his IP address was tracked. The latest reports from The Telegraph say three explosions were heard from the building.
"We knew, and that is why he was under surveillance," Claude Gueant, France's interior minister told the press. "There was no evidence that he was planning criminal actions."
The police were also tipped by a scooter repair shop in Toulouse, where the alleged shooter asked for a color change to his Yamaha scooter and for the GPS device to be removed, Reuters reports.
Merah, a French citizen of Algerian decent, said his crimes were to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and because of the French Army's involvement in the war in Afghanistan.