Étiquettes

Rescue workers enter after police forces stormed the kosher store where a gunman held several hostages, in Paris, Jan. 9, 2015. The assault came moments after a similar raid on the building where two brothers suspected in the Charlie Hebdo newspaper massacre were cornered. FRANCOIS MORI — AP
The brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who had been the focus of an intense manhunt since they stormed into the newspaper’s offices on Wednesday, died after an hours-long standoff at a business not far from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The third man, whom French authorities linked to the shooting only Friday, died at a Kosher grocery in Paris’s 12th Arrondissement, where he had taken an undetermined number of hostages. He was identified as Amedy Coulibaly and described as an associate of the Kouachis.
Also killed, according to news reports, were four hostages who’d been held at the grocery. Two police officers were reported injured, but their wounds were not considered life-threatening.
Friday’s carnage brought to 20, including the three suspects, the number of people killed in two days of terrorist violence that began with assault at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday on the Charlie Hebdo offices. In addition to the 10 newspaper staffers and two police officers killed there, the toll now includes a French policewoman whom authorities believe Coulibaly shot on Thursday and the four hostages who died at the grocery on Friday.
The bloody ending was not unexpected. Media reports said that the Kouachi brokers had told authorities they were “willing to die as martyrs” after they were surrounded at the business near the airport.
At the grocery store standoff, Coulibaly was reported to have told police “You know who I am, I won’t release these hostages until you end the siege up north,” apparently referring to the standoff with the Kouachi brothers.
Until Friday, authorities had focused on the Kouachi brothers alone after finding that their 18-year-old brother-in-law initially identified as a suspect had been in school during the Wednesday shootings.
But on Friday, authorities said the Charlie Hebdo killings were linked to Thursday’s shooting of the police woman in Montrouge south of Paris and asked the public for information on the whereabouts of Coulibaly and his girlfriend, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26.
It was unclear if authorities believed Coulibaly had accompanied the Kouachis to the Charlie Hebdo offices. Police originally said three gunmen were present there.
News reports said Boumeddiene may have been present at the Kosher grocery standoff, but escaped. She was also thought to have been present at the shooting of the policewoman.
The northern runways at Charles de Gaulle airport were shut down during the standoff there, as a precaution against stray bullets and, possible, rocket propelled grenades.
Police also shut down the streets around the grocery.