According to AP, two al-Qaida-linked brothers suspected in the Charlie Hebdo massacre came out of their hideaway with guns blazing Friday and were killed in a clash with security forces, French police said. Moments later, another hostage-taker in Paris was killed in a separate clash, along with three of his hostages.
France has been high alert since the country’s worst terror attack in decades — the massacre Wednesday in Paris at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead.
After the two separate hostage-taking incidents began Friday, city officials scrambled to protect residents and tourists from further attacks, shutting down a famed Jewish neighborhood, putting schools under lockdown and urging residents to stay indoors and remain vigilant.
By Friday afternoon, explosions and gunshots rang out and white smoke rose up outside a printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris, where brothers Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, had holed up with a hostage.
Security forces had surrounded the building for most of the day. After the explosions, a police SWAT forces were seen on the roof of the building and a police helicopter landed nearby it.
Audrey Taupenas, spokeswoman for the town near the Charles de Gaulle airport, said the brothers died in the clash. Their hostage was freed.
Another gunman who took at least five hostages Friday afternoon at a kosher grocery in Paris also died in a nearly simultaneous raid there, said Gael Fabiano of the UNSA police union.
The gunman, identified as Amedy Coulibaly, had earlier threatened to kill his hostages if French authorities launched an assault on the two brothers, a police official said. The two sets of hostage-takers know each other, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the rapidly developing situation.
One other police officer said three hostages also died at the grocery. None could say what happened to the woman listed on a police bulletin as his accomplice.
Security forces stormed the Paris grocery near the Porte de Vincennes neighborhood minutes after news of clashes at the printing plant. Moments later, several people were seen being led out of the store. It was not clear exactly how many hostages had been inside or how many were freed.
Trying to fend off further attacks, the Paris mayor’s office shut down all shops along Rosiers Street in the city’s famed Marais neighborhood in the heart of the tourist district. Hours before the Jewish Sabbath, the street is usually crowded with shoppers — French Jews and tourists alike. The street is also only a kilometer (a half mile) away from Charlie Hebdo’s offices. Source: (WSOCTV, AP)