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 forces gather at the Porte de Vincennes, eastern Paris, after a gunman opened fire at a kosher grocery store on Jan. 9, 2015 and took at several hostages.(Photo: Eric Feferberg, AFP/Getty Images)
PARIS — Police stormed a kosher supermarket on the eastern edge of Paris on Friday, killing a gunman linked to the killing of a policewoman and a deadly attack on a French satirical newspaper. Four hostages were feared dead, while others escaped unharmed, according to multiple media reports.
"I want to express my sadness at everyone who has lost their lives, including the hostages this afternoon," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said, according to local media.
Two officers and some hostages were reported injured as the hours-long standoff with Amedy Coulibaly, 32, ended amid gunshots near the supermarket Friday evening in Paris.
At the same time, explosions and smoke rattled a small printing warehouse northeast of the city where the two brothers suspected in the Wednesday shooting of Charlie Hebdo were cornered by police the day's second hostage standoff in France.
The two brothers — Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34 — were killed in a shootout with police, and the hostage they had taken was freed, police said.
A police official had told the Associated Press that Coulibaly had been threatening to kill hostages if authorities launched an assault the two brothers in the small industrial town of Dammartin-en-Goele, located about 30 miles northeast of Paris.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the dual hostage situations, described the events as "clearly linked." He said Coulibaly declared "you know who I am," when he stormed the market near Paris' Porte de Vincennes — one of the main Jewish communities in the city.
Amedy Coulibaly, left, and Hayat Boumeddiene, are suspects in the Jan. 8 shooting of a female police office in Montrouge, France. Coulibaly is a suspect in the hostage taking at a kosher supermarket on Jan. 9.(Photo: Paris Prefecture via European Pressphoto Agency)
Earlier Friday, a police bulletin named Coulibaly and another suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, in Thursday's shooting of policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27. Boumeddiene is believed to be the girlfriend and accomplice of Coulibaly. Boumeddiene's whereabouts and link to the supermarket remain unclear.
A senior French police official told the New York Times Coulibaly is linked to the Kouachi brothers.
"We are sure that Coulibaly was in connection with the Kouachi brothers," police official Christophe Tirante said. "They knew each other and met several times. They are from the same generation."
Coulibaly had frequent contact with the Kouachi brothers within the jihadist elements of Paris district Buttes-Chaumont, which revolved around the mosque there, French broadcaster RTL reported.
However, there was not necessarily coordination between the attacks on Hebdo and the policewoman, according to police, the broadcaster said.
Residents of France's capital city remained on edge as the two hostage-taking standoffs unfolded Friday.
"The people in the neighborhood are scared," said Jean Vattel, 50, who had to take shelter for several hours in a nearby store when gunshots ran out at the kosher supermarket. "With everything that has happened in the last couple of days I can't imagine how they wouldn't be."
Police ordered all shops along Rosiers Street in the famed Jewish neighborhood of Marais in central Paris closed Friday afternoon at the height of the hostage crisis, and the Grand Synagogue of Paris — the French capital's largest place of Jewish worship — also shuttered.
Sacha Reingewirtz, 28, president of the French Jewish Student Union, said France is a dangerous place for people who clearly show they are Jewish.
"What the government is doing to protect us is not enough. I refuse to have Jews here living behind walls in fear of their lives," he said. "We need more than a security plan but an educational plan to fight against stereotypes."
Lackey reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Doug Stanglin in McLean, Va., Angela Waters and Jabeen Bhatti in Berlin; The Associated Press
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