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Paris Standoff at Kosher Store; Charlie Hebdo Suspects Seize Hostage Outside City
French Police Storm Two Hostage Sites, Killing Charlie Hebdo Suspects
(35 minutes later)
PARIS — French security services confronted two dangerous hostage situations on Friday, one outside Paris involving the two suspects in Wednesday’s rampage at a satirical newspaper, and another that suddenly erupted in the afternoon at a kosher supermarket on the eastern edge of the capital.
PARIS — The French police on Friday killed the two brothers suspected of murdering 12 people at a Paris newspaper on Wednesday and freed their hostage unharmed, the authorities said. The police launched a simultaneous raid on a kosher supermarket in Paris where an alleged associate of the brothers was holding a number of hostages. At least some of hostages escaped unharmed, according to the police.
Gunshots and explosions were heard late Friday afternoon at the printing plant near Dammartin-en-Goële, outside of Paris, where the two suspects were holding a hostage. Smoke could be seen rising from the building, and it appeared that an assault on the facility had begun after a standoff that had lasted much of the day.
Shortly after 5 p.m., explosions and gunfire were heard at a printing plant outside of Paris where the two brothers were holding a single hostage.
Christophe Tirante, a senior police official, said that two people had been killed in the supermarket siege in Paris and that at least five hostages had been taken, with the attacker threatening to kill them as well. The Interior Ministry denied the report of deaths.
Moments later, gunfire erupted at a kosher supermarket on the eastern end of Paris where an alleged associate of the brothers was holding an unknown number of hostages. One woman was seen running from the market as heavily-armed police officers moved in, according to The A.P.
The authorities identified the suspect at the supermarket as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, and said he was also thought to be responsible for the killing of a female police officer in Montrouge, a suburb south of Paris, on Thursday morning.
The French newspaper Le Monde reported that the supermarket hostage-taker had also been killed.
The police said Mr. Coulibaly was an associate of Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, the brothers they suspect of staging the attack Wednesday at the offices of the newspaper, Charlie Hebdo. That attack left 12 dead, including two police officers.
The gunman in the supermarket had threatened to kill his hostages if the brothers, holding their hostage at a printing plant near Dammartin-en-Goële, outside of Paris, were attacked.
Mr. Tirante said Mr. Coulibaly had threatened to kill his hostages if the police stormed the building where the Kouachi brothers were under siege. His first demand was that the police let the brothers go, Mr. Tirante said; after that, he said, he would release his hostages.
“This shows that the these suspects know each other and are linked,” Mr. Tirante said.
The twin episodes threw the capital and its beleaguered government into a new crisis. President François Hollande interrupted a meeting with local officials to monitor efforts to capture the two suspects in the newspaper killings. When word of the second hostage-taking came, he sent his interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, to the scene, near Porte de Vincennes.
In a measure of the jitters pervading the city, the police ordered shopkeepers on Rue des Rosiers, a street with many Jewish-owned businesses, to close as a precaution.
Early on Friday, hundreds of French security forces converged on the printing plant, which is in an industrial park in Dammartin-en-Goële, near Charles de Gaulle Airport. The suspects told negotiators they intended to “die as martyrs,” a police official said.
As that drama was playing out about 30 miles northeast of Paris, the police responded in force to the shooting and hostage-taking at the kosher market.
The police and news reports said that Mr. Coulibaly was believed to have joined the same jihadist group as the Kouachi brothers, and that a terrorism investigation had been opened. They issued a photograph of Mr. Coulibaly and appealed for witnesses to come forward. They also published a photograph of a woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, who they said was also implicated in the Montrouge attack. They said both suspects were armed and dangerous.
Mohamed Douhane, a senior police officer following the negotiations with the Kouachis, said that the police were in contact with the two suspects and that they hoped to resolve the standoff peacefully.
“We have established communication with the Kouachi brothers,” he said. “They said they wanted to die as martyrs. They are behaving like two determined terrorists who are certainly physically exhausted, but who want to escape with one last big show of force and heroic resistance. They feel trapped and know that their last hours have come.”
The police said the brothers had been located at the printing warehouse by helicopters equipped with heat sensors. Shortly after the suspects were detected, residents saw security forces drop down on ropes from helicopters hovering over the area.
Residents of Dammartin-en-Goële were told to stay indoors. Students were locked down in their schools and were being kept away from windows and doors. Shortly after noon, the town announced that students at schools nearest the area of the operations were being evacuated by the police and taken to another school to be picked up by their parents. Helicopters were circling the town as a cold drizzle fell.
“We have signs of the presence of the terrorists, whom we want to stop,” Mr. Cazeneuve, the interior minister, told reporters in Paris.
Mr. Hollande, after meeting with local officials at the Interior Ministry, said, “France is going through a trying time,” and called this week’s attack “the worst of the past 50 years.”
Mr. Hollande, looking tense but trying to sound resolute, said, “France is also shocked, considering that the perpetrators of these acts have not yet been arrested, and I am speaking before you as operations are ongoing.”
The president added, “We have known for several months that there were attempts” at additional terrorist attacks, several of which he said had been thwarted.
Mr. Hollande said there would be a meeting of European interior ministers in Paris on Sunday to discuss new steps to interrupt terrorist networks, with cooperation from other countries, including the United States.
The area of the police activity is less than 10 miles from Charles de Gaulle Airport, the major international commercial airline hub serving Paris. Christophe Blondel Deblangy, a spokesman for the airport police, said aircraft had been advised to avoid certain runways as a precautionary measure.
Since Wednesday afternoon, he said, security officials have stationed two armored vehicles on the main access road to the airport and additional patrol cars in the perimeter.
Saïd Kouachi, 34, traveled to Yemen in 2011 and received terrorist training from Al Qaeda’s affiliate there before returning to France, according to American officials. His younger brother Chérif, 32, who has worked as a pizza deliveryman and a fishmonger, had been detained and later arrested in 2008 for his involvement in a Paris terrorist cell that had been recruiting French citizens to fight in Iraq.
