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 — At least two people were killed in an assault at a kosher supermarket on the eastern edge of Paris on Friday after a gunman linked to the killing of a policewoman and a deadly attack on a French satirical newspaper took hostages, multiple media outlets reported.
A police official told the Associated Pres the gunman is threatening to kill hostages if authorities launch an assault on the small printing warehouse northeast of the city where the two brothers suspected in the shooting on Charlie Hebdo are holed up in the second hostage standoff in France on Friday.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the dual hostage situations, described the events as "clearly linked."
The Interior Ministry denied the reports of deaths in the supermarket. Several people were wounded in the attack near Paris' Porte de Vincennes — one of the main Jewish communities in the city — after a man armed with an automatic rifle opened fire.
The gunman declared "you know who I am," according to the police official.
Police ordered all shops along Rosiers Street in the famed Jewish neighborhood of Marais in central Paris closed, and the council representing Jewish institutions in France advised its members not to take any risks.
The Grand Synagogue of Paris, the French capital's largest place of Jewish worship, closed Friday as the hostage situation unfolded. A caretaker at the door said the entire synagogue had been emptied out for security reasons.
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)
A police bulletin named two suspects in the shooting of policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27, as Hayat Boumeddiene, 26 and Amedy Coulibaly, 32. Boumeddiene is believed to be the girlfriend of Coulibaly, according to Le Monde.
The official speaking to the Associated Press named Coulibaly as the market hostage-taker and linked him to the newsroom massacre that killed 12 at the offices of Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday. Boumeddiene is believed to be his accomplice, the official said. Boumeddiene's whereabouts and link to the supermarket attack are unclear.
The tense situation in the supermarket developed as the two suspects in the Hebdo terror attack were cornered in a small industrial town northeast of Paris on Friday and told police they wanted to die as martyrs.
The suspects, Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his older brother Said, 34, took refuge in a small printing warehouse in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, located about 30 miles northeast of Paris. According to a town official, at least one person there was being held hostage.
Coulibaly is linked to the Kouachi brothers, senior French police official Christophe Tirante told the New York Times.
"We are sure that Coulibaly was in connection with the Kouachi brothers," 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 two attacks, according to police, the broadcaster said.
Two others were detained Thursday in connection with the shooting death of Jean-Philippe in Montrouge, located in the southern Parisian suburbs.
Parisians remained on edge as the two hostage-taking standoffs unfolded.
"I hope this will come to an end soon, that they are arrested and that violence stops," said graphic designer Elena Bucher, 45. "I hope they will be tried in a court of justice, not killed."
"We cannot continue living in fear," she added.
Elizabeth Whitney, 29, a masters student at the INSEEC Business School in Paris, said she's always felt safe going to class until recently.
"In the six years that I've lived here I've always felt extremely safe in this city, even when there have been threats of other terrorist attacks," said Whitney, who is from Connecticut. "(Now), I feel afraid to leave my house, I feel afraid to go anywhere."
Lackey reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Mary Vidon in Paris, Doug Stanglin in McLean, Va., Angela Waters and Jabeen Bhatti in Berlin; The Associated Press
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1BI4pec
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1KssppL
0 comments:
Post a Comment