Sunday Times 2
French forces kill three terrorists in dramatic siege climax
View(s):PARIS, Jan 10 (AFP) – French forces killed the two brothers behind the massacre at Charlie Hebdo and an Islamist ally Friday after three blood-soaked days that left 17 other people dead and shook the nation to its core.
A still image from video shows an explosion lighting the front of a kosher supermarket as French police special forces launch their assault, where several people were taken hostage in eastern Paris on January 9 (REUTERS)
Police were still hunting for another suspect, the girlfriend of one of the men, early today, hours after the fiery showdown with the gunmen who had kept France on edge since killing 12 people Wednesday at the offices of the satirical weekly.
The heavily armed brothers were cornered in a small town northeast of Paris while a third man took terrified shoppers hostage in a Jewish supermarket, where four died and seven were hurt including three police officers.
Explosions rang out at sunset at the two hostage sites as police moved in.
As France’s bloodiest week in decades drew to a close, the mood began to turn to one of grim national reflection.
President Francois Hollande said he would attend a march of unity in Paris on Sunday expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people as well as the leaders of countries including Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain.
Questions were also mounting over how the three men — brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, and supermarket gunman Amedy Coulibaly — had slipped through the security net after it emerged that all three were known to the intelligence agencies.
Coulibaly’s girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene, who was wanted by police in connection with the killing Thursday of a policewoman, was still on the loose.
With fears spreading in the wake of the attack, the United States warned of a global threat, telling its citizens to beware of “terrorist actions and violence” all over the world.
Hollande, meanwhile, warned the threats facing France “weren’t over”.
He described the attack on the supermarket as an “appalling anti-Semitic act” and said: “These fanatics have nothing to do with the Muslim religion.”
The Kouachi brothers were cornered in a printing business in Dammartin-en-Goele outside Paris Friday after a firefight with police that Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said left Said with a minor neck wound.
The gunmen had a hefty cache of arms including Molotov cocktails and a loaded rocket-launcher.
As French elite forces moved into place around the building, with snipers deployed on roofs and helicopters buzzing overhead, a fresh drama was unfolding in eastern Paris with a hail of gunfire around lunchtime.
There, Coulibaly stormed a Jewish supermarket hours before the Sabbath, killing four shoppers and taking others hostage.
However up to five people — including a three-year-old boy — survived hidden inside a refrigerator for five hours, with police pinpointing their location using their mobile phones, prosecutors and relatives said.
Police swarmed to the Vincennes area, ordering terrified residents to stay indoors.
Outside the kosher supermarket, an AFP reporter saw at least one body lying at the scene, where the sliding glass door of the shop was completely shattered.
As the sun set shortly after 5:00 pm local time, the two Islamist Charlie Hebdo gunmen charged out of the building with guns blazing before being cut down.
Shortly afterwards security forces moved in on the supermarket, where Coulibaly had just knelt to do his evening prayer when the special forces struck.
BFMTV revealed police were able to exploit a lapse in his defenses as he had not hung up his phone after speaking to one of their reporters.
A security source told AFP he had also called friends from the scene urging them to stage further attacks.