Two Suspects in Charlie Hebdo Shooting Killed by French Security Forces
The Huffington Post
By Eline Gordts
Posted: 01/09/2015
Two brothers believed to be behind Wednesday's attack on the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were reportedly killed on Friday, Agence France Presse reports.
Police cornered brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi on Friday inside a printing house in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele near Charles de Gaulle International Airport.
Le Monde notes that there are reports the brothers had taken one person hostage, but there is no confirmation of those reports, nor is information available about that person's identity.
Police negotiators tried to make contact with the suspects. The Associated Press reports that the brothers told the negotiators they wanted to die as martyrs.
Police also raided a kosher supermarket in Paris where a gunman opened fire and took at least five people hostage. Reuters reports that the gunman was killed in the police assault.
According to The Associated Press, the shooter threatened to hurt the hostages if police raided the building where the Kouchi brothers were holed up. The assailant is also believed to be a suspect in yesterday's killing of a policewoman on the southern edge of Paris.
On Wednesday, two masked and heavily armed gunmen stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris while the staff was in an editorial meeting, killing 10 journalists and two policemen. Several others were injured in the attack. Witnesses told police that one of the gunmen shouted, "We have avenged the prophet. We killed Charlie Hebdo."
Hours after the attack, French authorities identified three suspects: Hamyd Mourad, Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi.
Mourad turned himself in to authorities at a police station about 145 miles northeast of Paris on Wednesday night, saying he had seen his own name circulating on social media. Friends of Mourad told French media that he was in school at the time of the attack.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, was convicted in 2008 for his involvement in a Paris-based cell that trafficked French Muslims to fight in Iraq, and he served 18 months of a three-year sentence.
U.S. and European sources close to the investigation said on Thursday they believe Said Kouachi had previously traveled to Yemen to train with the al Qaeda affiliate in that country.
French terror suspects killed in police assaults
Kim Hjelmgaard and Doug Stanglin,
USA TODAY 11:43 a.m. EST
January 9, 2015
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.
PARIS — Two suspects wanted in the deadly terror attack on a satirical newspaper were killed in a police assault Friday north of Paris that coincided with an assault at a second hostage standoff at a kosher supermarket in the capital, according to multiple news sources.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his older brother Said, 34, who had been cornered in a printing warehouse in the village of Dammartin-en-Goele, were killed in the operation, according to multiple news sites, including CNN, Le Monde and the AFP news agency,
CNN quoted the mayor of Dammartin-en-Goele as saying the two Kouachi brothers were killed in the assault.
In the second standoff, a gunman had seized hostages at a kosher supermarket at the Porte de Vincenees in eastern Paris.The fate of the gunman in Paris was not immediately clear.
The coordinated police assaults came after the gunman in Paris had threatened to kill as many his hostages if police stormed the industrial park in Dammartin-en-Goele where the Kouachi brothers were trapped.
The two standoffs followed an intense manhunt for the brothers, who are suspected in the mass killing at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper Wednesday. The two suspects had been surrounded in a small printing warehouse.
The latest incidents left the country reeling and prompted French President Francois Hollande to convene a crisis meeting with top government officials at the presidential palace.
The French Interior Ministry denied an initial report by AFP news agency that two people were killed at the supermarket at the Porte de Vincennes, according to France24. Reuters reported one person injured in the takeover.
The two brothers are wanted in the killing of 12 people — including two police officers — in retaliation for the publishing of cartoons caricaturing the prophet Mohammed.
"They said they want to die as martyrs," Yves Albarello, a lawmaker who said he was inside the police command post in Dammartin-en-Goele, told French television station i-Tele.
Police established contact by phone with the suspects and convinced them to allow the evacuation of about 1,000 students in nearby schools. French TV showed a line of buses brought into town to remove the children.
The gunman holed up in the supermarket in Porte de Vincennes may be linked to the killing of a policewoman south of the capital Thursday.
Police asked Jewish stores in the historic neighborhood of Le Marais to pull down the shutters and close early.
The supermarket hostage-taking came after French police said there is a "connection" between the pair accused in the assault on the newspaper and the shooter of the policewoman, according to the AFP news agency.
French police identified two suspects in the shooting of the policewoman in Montrouge as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, and a woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, described as his girlfriend, according to Reuters.
Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi, one of the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo shooting, knew each other, AFP reported, quoting an unidentified source close to the investigation.
Mashable journalist Tim Chester posted a Vine showing the siege at the Porte de Vincennes supermarket.
After a full day on the run, the Kouachi brothers were tracked to Dammartin-en-Goele, 25 miles northeast of the capital, which is close to the flight path of Charles de Gaulle airport. The airport , which is 7 miles away, closed two runways to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff.
Brothers suspected in a newspaper terror attack were cornered with a hostage inside a printing house on Friday, after they hijacked a car and police followed them to a village near Paris' main airport.
In the town, schools went into lockdown, and officials appealed to residents to stay inside their houses.
Xavier Castaing, the chief Paris police spokesman, said the suspects were holed up inside CTF Creation Tendance Decouverte, a printing house.
The massive manhunt came to a head earlier Friday after the suspects stole a Peugeot car, a French security official told the AP. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the situation was developing. The pair exchanged gunfire at a roadblock and fled to the nearby industrial town.
Police had concentrated on the region after a clerk at a gasoline station said the pair robbed him at gunpoint Thursday.
After fleeing to Dammartin-en-Goele, the brothers approached a salesman identified only as Didier as he prepared to enter the family-run printing and advertising firm in the town, French radio reported.
Didier said a person who was heavily armed and resembled French special forces introduced himself as a policeman and said, "You should go. We don't kill civilians anyway."
Didier left and called the police.
Over the past two days, authorities have begun to piece together the background of the two suspects. The two were on a U.S. no-fly watch list, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak on the case publicly. One of them, Said, traveled to Yemen in 2011, raising the prospect that he had training or direction, the official said.
A third suspect, Hamyd Mourad, 18, surrendered at a police station early Thursday in Charleville-Mezieres, a small town in France's eastern Champagne region, Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said.
Mourad's role in the attack, if any, remains unclear. The teenager has an alibi, telling authorities he was at school at the time, the BBC reported.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will travel to Paris this weekend to attend a meeting Sunday. The French minister of the Interior called the conference in response to the attacks. The meeting will include discussions on addressing terrorist threats, foreign fighters and countering violent extremism.
Contributing: Maya Vidon and Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY; Associated Press
By Eline Gordts
Posted: 01/09/2015
Two brothers believed to be behind Wednesday's attack on the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were reportedly killed on Friday, Agence France Presse reports.
Police cornered brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi on Friday inside a printing house in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele near Charles de Gaulle International Airport.
Le Monde notes that there are reports the brothers had taken one person hostage, but there is no confirmation of those reports, nor is information available about that person's identity.
Police negotiators tried to make contact with the suspects. The Associated Press reports that the brothers told the negotiators they wanted to die as martyrs.
Police also raided a kosher supermarket in Paris where a gunman opened fire and took at least five people hostage. Reuters reports that the gunman was killed in the police assault.
According to The Associated Press, the shooter threatened to hurt the hostages if police raided the building where the Kouchi brothers were holed up. The assailant is also believed to be a suspect in yesterday's killing of a policewoman on the southern edge of Paris.
On Wednesday, two masked and heavily armed gunmen stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris while the staff was in an editorial meeting, killing 10 journalists and two policemen. Several others were injured in the attack. Witnesses told police that one of the gunmen shouted, "We have avenged the prophet. We killed Charlie Hebdo."
Hours after the attack, French authorities identified three suspects: Hamyd Mourad, Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi.
Mourad turned himself in to authorities at a police station about 145 miles northeast of Paris on Wednesday night, saying he had seen his own name circulating on social media. Friends of Mourad told French media that he was in school at the time of the attack.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, was convicted in 2008 for his involvement in a Paris-based cell that trafficked French Muslims to fight in Iraq, and he served 18 months of a three-year sentence.
U.S. and European sources close to the investigation said on Thursday they believe Said Kouachi had previously traveled to Yemen to train with the al Qaeda affiliate in that country.
French terror suspects killed in police assaults
Kim Hjelmgaard and Doug Stanglin,
USA TODAY 11:43 a.m. EST
January 9, 2015
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.
PARIS — Two suspects wanted in the deadly terror attack on a satirical newspaper were killed in a police assault Friday north of Paris that coincided with an assault at a second hostage standoff at a kosher supermarket in the capital, according to multiple news sources.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his older brother Said, 34, who had been cornered in a printing warehouse in the village of Dammartin-en-Goele, were killed in the operation, according to multiple news sites, including CNN, Le Monde and the AFP news agency,
CNN quoted the mayor of Dammartin-en-Goele as saying the two Kouachi brothers were killed in the assault.
In the second standoff, a gunman had seized hostages at a kosher supermarket at the Porte de Vincenees in eastern Paris.The fate of the gunman in Paris was not immediately clear.
The coordinated police assaults came after the gunman in Paris had threatened to kill as many his hostages if police stormed the industrial park in Dammartin-en-Goele where the Kouachi brothers were trapped.
The two standoffs followed an intense manhunt for the brothers, who are suspected in the mass killing at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper Wednesday. The two suspects had been surrounded in a small printing warehouse.
The latest incidents left the country reeling and prompted French President Francois Hollande to convene a crisis meeting with top government officials at the presidential palace.
The French Interior Ministry denied an initial report by AFP news agency that two people were killed at the supermarket at the Porte de Vincennes, according to France24. Reuters reported one person injured in the takeover.
The two brothers are wanted in the killing of 12 people — including two police officers — in retaliation for the publishing of cartoons caricaturing the prophet Mohammed.
"They said they want to die as martyrs," Yves Albarello, a lawmaker who said he was inside the police command post in Dammartin-en-Goele, told French television station i-Tele.
Police established contact by phone with the suspects and convinced them to allow the evacuation of about 1,000 students in nearby schools. French TV showed a line of buses brought into town to remove the children.
The gunman holed up in the supermarket in Porte de Vincennes may be linked to the killing of a policewoman south of the capital Thursday.
Police asked Jewish stores in the historic neighborhood of Le Marais to pull down the shutters and close early.
The supermarket hostage-taking came after French police said there is a "connection" between the pair accused in the assault on the newspaper and the shooter of the policewoman, according to the AFP news agency.
French police identified two suspects in the shooting of the policewoman in Montrouge as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, and a woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, described as his girlfriend, according to Reuters.
Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi, one of the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo shooting, knew each other, AFP reported, quoting an unidentified source close to the investigation.
Mashable journalist Tim Chester posted a Vine showing the siege at the Porte de Vincennes supermarket.
After a full day on the run, the Kouachi brothers were tracked to Dammartin-en-Goele, 25 miles northeast of the capital, which is close to the flight path of Charles de Gaulle airport. The airport , which is 7 miles away, closed two runways to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff.
Brothers suspected in a newspaper terror attack were cornered with a hostage inside a printing house on Friday, after they hijacked a car and police followed them to a village near Paris' main airport.
In the town, schools went into lockdown, and officials appealed to residents to stay inside their houses.
Xavier Castaing, the chief Paris police spokesman, said the suspects were holed up inside CTF Creation Tendance Decouverte, a printing house.
The massive manhunt came to a head earlier Friday after the suspects stole a Peugeot car, a French security official told the AP. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the situation was developing. The pair exchanged gunfire at a roadblock and fled to the nearby industrial town.
Police had concentrated on the region after a clerk at a gasoline station said the pair robbed him at gunpoint Thursday.
After fleeing to Dammartin-en-Goele, the brothers approached a salesman identified only as Didier as he prepared to enter the family-run printing and advertising firm in the town, French radio reported.
Didier said a person who was heavily armed and resembled French special forces introduced himself as a policeman and said, "You should go. We don't kill civilians anyway."
Didier left and called the police.
Over the past two days, authorities have begun to piece together the background of the two suspects. The two were on a U.S. no-fly watch list, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak on the case publicly. One of them, Said, traveled to Yemen in 2011, raising the prospect that he had training or direction, the official said.
A third suspect, Hamyd Mourad, 18, surrendered at a police station early Thursday in Charleville-Mezieres, a small town in France's eastern Champagne region, Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said.
Mourad's role in the attack, if any, remains unclear. The teenager has an alibi, telling authorities he was at school at the time, the BBC reported.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will travel to Paris this weekend to attend a meeting Sunday. The French minister of the Interior called the conference in response to the attacks. The meeting will include discussions on addressing terrorist threats, foreign fighters and countering violent extremism.
Contributing: Maya Vidon and Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY; Associated Press
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