Charlie Hebdo attack: French officials establish link between gunmen in both attacks — live
Updated
- Gunmen besieged outside city and in Paris are killed
- Coulibaly and Kouachis spoke on the phone more than 500 times
- Police storm buildings in raids to free hostages
- French president: ‘unity is our best weapon’
Summary
• Two separate police raids in Paris and Dammartin-en-Goële killed the Charlie Hebdo gunmen and a third man, ending a three-day manhunt. Police found Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, wanted for murdering 12 people in Paris on Wednesday, and cornered them in a printworks office.
• In an interview before he was killed, Cherif Kouachi claimed that he was sent by al-Qaida in Yemen, as a defender of the prophet. In a separate interview, Coulibaly said that his attack had been ‘synchronized’ with the Kouachis’ Charlie Hebdo attack.
• The Paris prosecutor revealed new details of both sieges, stating that Coulibaly, his girlfriend and the Kouachi brothers had spoken on the phone more than 500 times.
• French special forces stormed the Dammartin-en-Goële printworks and a kosher supermarket in Vincennes, Paris, trading fire with the gunmen and throwing flashbang grenades after standoffs that lasted for hours. One hostage escaped unharmed in Dammartin-en-Goële.
• Four hostages were killed and four wounded in the supermarketin Paris, where Amedy Coulibaly held civilians captive. Authorities believe Coulibaly and an accomplice killed a policewoman Thursday in southern France, naming her as Hayat Boumeddienne, and described her as “armed and dangerous” and at large.
• French president Francois Hollande addressed the nation from the Elysée, congratulating police and saying the nation must not give in to such a “terrifying antisemitic attack” like the one on the grocery. “We are a free nation that does not give in,” he said. “We carry an ideal that is greater than us.”
• World leaders pledged support for France, many of whom will join Hollande at a rally in Paris on Sunday. British prime minister David Cameron, German chancellor Angela Merkel, and EU president Donald Tusk all said they would accept Hollande’s invitation. US president Barack Obama said Paris’ spirit of freedom “will endure forever, long after the scourge of terrorism is banished from this world.”
The French gendarmerie (GIGN) have released footage of the raid on Dammartin-en-Goële:
Assaut du GIGN à Dammartin-en-Goële http://youtu.be/yS57T5A0CIE Published on Jan 9, 2015
Le 9 janvier 2015, à 17h00, le GIGN donne l'assaut à Dammartin-en-Goële contre les deux terroristes auteurs de l'attentat de Charlie Hebdo
Le Monde has published a series of photos taken by Amedy Coulibaly and his girlfriend in 2010, while they were visiting noted Islamic radical Djamel Beghal, who Le Monde has called Cherif Kouachi’s mentor. The photographs show Boumedienne, wearing a niqab and holding a crossbow. http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jan/09/charlie-hebdo-manhunt-kouachi-terrorist-links-live-updates
Hebdo suspects killed as French police end dual sieges
PARIS (Reuters) - Two brothers wanted for the shooting of 12 people at the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo were killed on Friday in a police raid on the print works north of Paris where they had been holed up with a hostage, officials said.
A police source said the hostage-taker at another stand-off at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris was dead after a police operation there. That hostage-taker was believed to have links to the same Islamist group as the two brothers.
One police official said the hostage taken by the Kouachi brothers at the print works in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele was safe.
The fate of all the hostages believed to have been held at the supermarket in eastern Paris was not immediately clear.
French television showed several people running away from the premises after an earlier shootout, however a police union source said at least four hostages were feared dead. The source said he understood there had been up to 20 hostages.
(Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry; editing by Mark John)
http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/01/09/france-shooting-assaults-idINKBN0KI1PK20150109
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUOLPrXqibs Published on Jan 9, 2015
At least four hostages and a jihadist gunman have been killed in a deadly Paris supermarket siege. Read more: http://news.sky.com/story/1405106/hos...