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Sunday, January 11, 2015

Huge numbers to rally against terror in Paris - USA TODAY



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Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend an anti-terror rally in Paris on Sunday, after 17 people and three gunmen were killed over three days of attacks in the French capital.


Twelve people were killed when armed gunmen stormed the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, while a policewoman was gunned down on Thursday. On Friday, a gunman and four hostages died during a standoff at a kosher supermarket.


German newspaper the Hamburger Morgenpost, which reprinted Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the prophet Mohammed following Wednesday's massacre, said it suffered an arson attack at about 2 a.m. local time Sunday. No one was in the building at the time, the paper said, adding that two people were arrested. It was not immediately known if the attack is connected to the cartoons.







World leaders expected to take part in the Paris rally include French President François Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the BBC reported.



A firef truck sits outside the building of the 'Hamburger Morgenpost' in Hamburg, northern Germany, Sunday morning, Jan. 11, 2015. According to police fire broke out in an archive room of the paper after an arson attack. The newspaper ran caricatures of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper after the attack on Wednesday.(Photo: Bodo Marks, AP)



More than 2,000 police are being deployed, in addition to tens of thousands already guarding synagogues, mosques, schools and other sites around France.


The rally "must show the power, the dignity of the French people who will be shouting out of love of freedom and tolerance," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Saturday.


"Journalists were killed because they defended freedom. Policemen were killed because they were protecting you. Jews were killed because they were Jewish," he said. "The indignation must be absolute and total — not for three days only, but permanently."


A reported 700,000 people turned out in vigils across France on Saturday to honor those killed, and even more people are expected to rally in Paris on Sunday. People around the world gathered in solidarity with the victims Saturday in locations including New York; Johannesburg, South Africa; Rabat, Morocco; and Tel Aviv, Israel.







Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi massacred 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices, before leading police on a chase for two days. They were cornered by officers at a printing house near Charles de Gaulle Airport on Friday and killed.


Separately, Amedy Coulibaly shot and killed a policewoman and attacked the kosher supermarket, threatening more violence unless the police let the Kouachis go. Minutes later, officers stormed the market where Coulibaly had opened fire, killing four people before taking hostages. Coulibaly was killed during the police assault.




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Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen said it directed Wednesday's attack against Charlie Hebdo to avenge the honor of the prophet Mohammed, a frequent target of the weekly's satire.


The police hunt continues for Coulibaly's widow, Hayat Boumeddiene. Police named her as an accomplice of her husband in the shooting of the policewoman Thursday, and think she is armed.


But a Turkish intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, told The Associated Press on Saturday that a woman by the same name flew into Sabiha Gokcen, Istanbul's secondary airport, on Jan. 2, and that she resembled a widely distributed photo of Boumeddiene.


Turkish authorities believe she traveled to the Turkish city of Sanliurfa near the Syrian border two days later.


Five people are in custody in connection with the attacks, and family members of the attackers have been given preliminary charges.


Contributing: Associated Press


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