3 gunmen, 4 hostages killed in dramatic hostage raids in France

Europe, News January 10, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

A three-day manhunt for the Charlie Hebdo attackers ended dramatically with two hostage situations, in which 7 people were killed, including the gunmen. Casualties came in the Paris kosher store crisis that revealed more terror accomplices.

Friday’s events played out at two separate locations: in Dammartin-en-Goele northeast of Paris, where Wednesday’s shooting suspects, Cherif and Said Kouachi, were found, and in the capital’s Porte de Vincennes neighborhood, where a Kouachi-linked gunman named Amedy Coulibaly took hostages at a kosher grocery store.

The gunman at the grocery store, Amedy Coulibaly, 32, is believed to be connected to the Kouachi brothers, authorities said. French police were hunting for a woman they say was an accomplice in that attack, Hayat Boumeddiene. Five people connected to the attackers are still being held by authorities, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said.

French special forces used stun grenades and assault rifles to storm the two locations. The National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), a special operations unit of the French Armed Forces, led the assaults.

The Kouachi brothers were surrounded at Dammartin-en-Goele printworks and reportedly opened machine gun fire at police. A worker barricaded himself in the same building and was initially believed to be a hostage, but it turned out the gunmen had no idea he was there.

The 26-year-old Lilian, who reportedly hid “under a sink in the canteen” upstairs, was terrified, but nevertheless managed to tip the police off with some valuable “tactical” information.

Security forces had the building surrounded for most of Friday. The assault began at a time when several loud blasts were heard and smoke was seen rising over the building. Police decided to launch the assault when they learned the gunmen had started praying, according to BFMTV.

Explosions and gunfire rang out in both places — at the printing factory in the countryside town of Dammartin-en-Goele and at the kosher market in Paris — in what the French hoped was a conclusion to the spasm of terror that has gripped France for more than two days.

One hostage was freed at the printing factory, authorities said. At the market, four hostages were killed and 15 were freed, according to Israeli government officials who spoke to their French counterparts. The four dead hostages were killed by the gunman before the police raid, Molins said. Four officers were injured, including one who was seriously hurt.

In all, 17 people were killed in the terror attacks that began on Wednesday with the massacre at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, sparking the intense manhunt that paralyzed France and put the West on edge.

French authorities are still searching for a fourth suspect, believed to have aided the supermarket gunman in an attack Thursday that left one police officer dead and another wounded.

RT/NBC News