Two brothers suspected of killing 12 people in an extremist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo seized a hostage yesterday as police cornered the gunmen northeast of the capital in a dramatic climax to the manhunt.
Snipers were deployed on roofs and helicopters swooped low over a small printing business in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, just 12km from Paris’ main Charles de Gaulle airport.
Ahead of the standoff, police had already exchanged fire with the pair in a high-speed car chase.
Photo: Reuters
As the small town of 8,000 people became the epicenter of the siege, it emerged that the killing on Thursday of a policewoman was carried out by a gunman linked to the two suspects.
Police said the same gunman held at least five people hostage in a kosher market in Paris yesterday, opening fire and declaring: “You know who I am.”
In Dammartin-en-Goele, residents stayed indoors as the hostage drama unfolded.
Prior to the standoff, the suspects had hijacked a car nearby from a woman who said she recognized them as the accused brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi.
French President Francois Hollande rushed to a meeting to be briefed on the situation as French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared that France was at “war” with terrorism, but “not in a war against religion.”
Two Air France planes were forced to abort their landing at Charles de Gaulle airport and go round again “due to the presence of helicopters ... flying over the zone at low altitude,” the airline said.
French authorities had raised the security alert to the highest possible level in the region of Picardy, as forces tightened their noose on the brothers.
French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve announced that a total of 88,000 security forces had been mobilized and that an international meeting on terrorism would take place in Paris tomorrow.
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