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French police were confronted with two hostage standoffs Friday as the suspects in the 'Charlie Hedbo' massacre were cornered by police. At the same time a shooting and hostage situation were under way at a kosher market in Paris. VPC
Police block access to Dammartin-en-Goele.(Photo: Thibault Camus, AP)
PARIS — Two suspects wanted in the deadly terror attack on a satirical newspaper were killed in a police assault Friday north of Paris that coincided with an assault at a second hostage standoff at a kosher supermarket in the capital, according to multiple news sources.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his older brother Said, 34, who had been cornered in a printing warehouse in the village of Dammartin-en-Goele, were killed in the operation, according to multiple news sites, including CNN, Le Monde and the AFP news agency,
CNN quoted the mayor of Dammartin-en-Goele as saying the two Kouachi brothers were killed in the assault.
In the second standoff, a gunman had seized hostages at a kosher supermarket at the Porte de Vincenees in eastern Paris.The fate of the gunman in Paris was not immediately clear.
The coordinated police assaults came after the gunman in Paris had threatened to kill as many his hostages if police stormed the industrial park in Dammartin-en-Goele where the Kouachi brothers were trapped.
The two standoffs followed an intense manhunt for the brothers, who are suspected in the mass killing at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper Wednesday. The two suspects had been surrounded in a small printing warehouse.
The latest incidents left th country reeling and prompted French President Francois Hollande to convene a crisis meeting with top government officials at the presidential palace.
The French Interior Ministry denied an initial report by AFP news agency that two people were killed at the supermarket at the Porte de Vincennes, according to France24. Reuters reported one person injured in the takeover.
French police officers arrive to take up positions near Porte de Vincennes in Paris on Jan. 9 in response to a hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket.(Photo: Loic Venance, AFP/Getty Images)
USA TODAY
Hostages freed as police storm Paris supermarket
French police take up positions at Porte de Vincennes in Paris on Jan. 9, where a hostage-taking unfolded.(Photo: Loic Venance, AFP/Getty Images)
The two brothers are wanted in the killing of 12 people — including two police officers — in retaliation for the publishing of cartoons caricaturing the prophet Mohammed.
French police released photos of two suspects wanted in the killing of a French policewoman. They are identified as Hayat Boumeddiene, and Amedy Coulibaly.(Photo: Prefecture de Police)
"They said they want to die as martyrs," Yves Albarello, a lawmaker who said he was inside the police command post in Dammartin-en-Goele, told French television station i-Tele.
Police established contact by phone with the suspects and convinced them to allow the evacuation of about 1,000 students in nearby schools. French TV showed a line of buses brought into town to remove the children.
The gunman holed up in the supermarket in Porte de Vincennes may be linked to the killing of a policewoman south of the capital Thursday.
Police asked Jewish stores in the historic neighborhood of Le Marais to pull down the shutters and close early.
The supermarket hostage-taking came after French police said there is a "connection" between the pair accused in the assault on the newspaper and the shooter of the policewoman, according to the AFP news agency.
French police identified two suspects in the shooting of the policewoman in Montrouge as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, and a woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, described as his girlfriend, according to Reuters.
Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi, one of the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo shooting, knew each other, AFP reported, quoting an unidentified source close to the investigation.
Mashable journalist Tim Chester posted a Vine showing the siege at the Porte de Vincennes supermarket.
After a full day on the run, the Kouachi brothers were tracked to Dammartin-en-Goele, 25 miles northeast of the capital, which is close to the flight path of Charles de Gaulle airport. The airport , which is 7 miles away, closed two runways to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff.
Brothers suspected in a newspaper terror attack were cornered with a hostage inside a printing house on Friday, after they hijacked a car and police followed them to a village near Paris' main airport. (Jan. 9) AP
In the town, schools went into lockdown, and officials appealed to residents to stay inside their houses.
Xavier Castaing, the chief Paris police spokesman, said the suspects were holed up inside CTF Creation Tendance Decouverte, a printing house.
The massive manhunt came to a head earlier Friday after the suspects stole a Peugeot car, a French security official told the AP. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the situation was developing. The pair exchanged gunfire at a roadblock and fled to the nearby industrial town.
Police had concentrated on the region after a clerk at a gasoline station said the pair robbed him at gunpoint Thursday.
USA TODAY
French police hunt door to door for terror suspects
After fleeing to Dammartin-en-Goele, the brothers approached a salesman identified only as Didier as he prepared to enter the family-run printing and advertising firm in the town, French radio reported.
Didier said a person who was heavily armed and resembled French special forces introduced himself as a policeman and said, "You should go. We don't kill civilians anyway."
Didier left and called the police.
Over the past two days, authorities have begun to piece together the background of the two suspects. The two were on a U.S. no-fly watch list, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak on the case publicly. One of them, Said, traveled to Yemen in 2011, raising the prospect that he had training or direction, the official said.
A third suspect, Hamyd Mourad, 18, surrendered at a police station early Thursday in Charleville-Mezieres, a small town in France's eastern Champagne region, Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said.
Mourad's role in the attack, if any, remains unclear. The teenager has an alibi, telling authorities he was at school at the time, the BBC reported.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will travel to Paris this weekend to attend a meeting Sunday. The French minister of the Interior called the conference in response to the attacks. The meeting will include discussions on addressing terrorist threats, foreign fighters and countering violent extremism.
Contributing: Maya Vidon and Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY; Associated Press
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