Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article Dammartin, medieval French countship, whose seat was at Dammartin-en-Goële, northwest of Meaux (in the modern département of Seine-et-Marne) Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. All three suspects were killed and 16 hostages freed I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Two days of manhunts and sieges came to an abrupt and violent end in the space of a few moments on Friday with the deaths of the brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre and a man who seized a Kosher supermarket in an attempt to help them escape. Gunmen Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, and their alleged associate Amedy Coulibaly all died during the operations. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said several people have been handed preliminary charges in the investigation following the three-day rampage, including unidentified family members of the three suspects. Coulibaly had burst into the Hyper Cacher shop earlier in the day "shooting in all directions", sparking panic and a police lock-down of the surrounding area. Four people were killed as he made his bloody entrance, with their bodies still there when police raided it hours later. After hours of eerie quiet in the Parisian suburb of Vincennes when authorities shut down Jewish businesses and shoppers fled, explosions lit up the Hyper Cacher in Paris as police stormed the shop at around 5pm. Authorities had hijacked the shop's CCTV cameras to watch the unfolding hostage crisis inside, as Coulibaly threatened to murder the men, women and children he had captured if police made a move on the Kouachi brothers. Footage from the scene showed the moment Coulibaly ran out of the kosher store firing and was taken down by a volley of bullets shot by French police. Commandos then fired stun grenades into the shop before swarming inside, flanked by an armoured vehicle and a stream of ambulances. Frenzied civilians - one of them carrying a toddler - scurried out under escort by helmeted police in body armour. Fifteen hostages were freed but four were already dead according to Coulibaly, who told a French television station he had killed them. Some of the survivors had holed up in the supermarket's freezer, apparently unbeknownst to the gunman. BFMTV, a 24 hour channel, said it had conducted a telephone interview with Coulibaly, who claimed to have worked “in synchronisation” with the Charlie Hebdo killers and to have links with Isis. He targeted Jews specifically with his choice of the Kosher grocer, he said, claiming to defend "oppressed Muslims" in Palestine. Coulibaly did not hang up properly after the phone call, the station said, allowing police to hear him saying a final prayer before his death, perhaps prompting the raid. Minutes before, police had launched their assault on a printing plant north of Paris in Dammartin-en-Goele, where the Kouachi brothers were hiding with a single hostage. The Kouachi attack and the siege of a kosher grocery store by Coulibaly were closely co-ordinated, with Coulibaly and his girlfriend speaking more than 500 times to the Kouachi brothers over the phone according to police. The pair reportedly burst out of the building firing their guns at police at around 5pm on Friday after saying they "wanted to die as martyrs". They had gone on the run after allegedly shooting 12 people dead at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo two days ago and threatened to kill a hostage if police attempted to enter the building. The Kouarchis had hijacked a Peugeot near the small town of Crepy-en-Valois and were pursued for 30 miles south along the N2 trunk road by gendarmerie cars before taking refuge in the print works. Security forces had surrounded it for most of the day and after a series of explosions at around 5pm (4pm GMT), Swat teams could be seen on the roof of the building as a helicopter landed nearby. Authorities said the brothers temporarily took a man hostage at the plant but let him go, and they were reportedly shot dead during the firefight with police. A second man was later discovered to have been hiding inside the building. Cherif Kouachi spoke to BMFTV hours before his death, claiming to be funded by al-Qaeda in Yemen, which later claimed responsibility for ordering the Charlie Hebdo attack. He called himself and his brother “defenders of the prophet", calling Charlie Hebdo journalists “targets.” He claimed he did not want to kill women and children but that "the West massacred them in Iraq and Afghanistan". The brothers' link to 32-year-old Coulibaly, who is suspected of shooting a female police officer dead before taking hostages at the Kosher grocery shop, appeared to be through Cherif. The pair were named together as part of a plot to free an Islamist terrorist from a French prison and may have been radlicalised by the same group. Coulibaly's girlfriend Hayat Boumedienne, 26, has also be named by police as a person of interest. It is believed that Ms Boumedienne attended a suspected jihadist training camp in Cantal, a mountainous area of central France. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies French police released pictures of two suspects in the Charlie Hebdo shootings Chérif Kouachi and Said Kouachi were the primary suspects in Wednesday’s shooting at a French satirical newspaper that claimed 12 lives the brothers were at large when a manhunt drove them to a small industrial town called Dammartin-en-Goële The brothers took one hostage with them into a printing house French TV reported the hostage to be a 26-year-old man During two near-corresponding police raids (one in Dammartin-en-Goële and another in a supermarket in Paris) smoke and explosions were observed outside the printing house and by Friday evening While the Kouachis have been linked to al-Qaida Chérif Kouachi also went by the name Abu Issen Born in France, Chérif was raised in an orphanage in Rennes in western France He prepared for a career as a fitness coach but in the early 2000s was reported to have moved closer to Paris working as a pizza delivery man He was a member of the “Buttes-Chaumont network,” a group that reportedly sent men to fight against U.S he was detained before boarding a plane bound for Syria While serving time, Le Monde reports that Chérif met Djamel Beghal Beghal was serving a 10-year sentence for his role in a 2001 plan to bomb the U.S he was sentenced to three years in prison for associating with extremist fighters but half his sentence was suspended In 2010, he was investigated for a jail-break plot that Amedy Coulibaly, a gunmen who took several hostages in a kosher grocery store in Paris today, participated in. Coulibaly was the man suspected of murdering a French policewoman on Thursday with the help of another suspect, Hayat Boumediene When Chérif moved near Paris in the early 2000s his older brother was already living there Said was also named in the prison break plot in 2010 but was not charged due to lack of evidence French authorities report that in 2011, the elder Kouachi brother traveled to Yemen sometime before Sept The length of time he stayed and his actions are unknown Online Editorial Production Assistant at the PBS NewsHour © 1996 - 2025 NewsHour Productions LLC PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization Subscribe to Here's the Deal with Lisa Desjardins Four hostages dead after French Swat teams storm printing firm in Dammartin-en-Goële and supermarket in Paris heavily armed French elite forces shot dead the two gunmen behind Wednesday’s massacre at Charlie Hebdo and a third member of the terror cell wanted for Thursday’s murder of a young policewoman But while all the gunmen’s remaining hostages were freed unharmed, with stories emerging of how some hid in cardboard boxes and refrigerators to evade the attackers the relief was marred by the news that Amedy Coulibaly suspected of killing police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe in Montrouge on Thursday had shot and killed four shoppers in the Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris that he stormed at about 1pm on Friday Key members of the French government were due to held a security meeting on Saturday morning to decide on measures to protect against further such attacks World leaders were telephoning President François Hollande to express their sympathy and support At a small printing company in Dammartin-en-Goële, 25 miles north-east of the French capital, police shot dead Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, responsible for the cold-blooded killing of 12 people – including two policemen – at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices Gunfire and explosions at Dammartin-en-Goële siege GuardianThe bloody climax to the unprecedented double hostage-taking brought to an end two days of drama and uncertainty that began on Wednesday morning when the Kouachi brothers burst into the Charlie Hebdo offices In the aftermath of the deadliest terror attack on French soil in half a century BFM TV revealed on Friday night that it had been in telephone contact with Chérif Kouachi from inside the printing factory earlier in the day the gunman could be heard telling the station he had been sent “by al-Qaida Yemen” On Friday night a member of al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen claimed that the group directed the attack against Charlie Hebdo “as revenge for the honour” of the prophet Muhammad Saying it had not released the tapes earlier to avoid compromising the police operations BFM TV also replayed a conversation it had with Coulibaly in which he said the two attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the Montrouge police officer had been synchronised He said he had targeted the Paris shop “because it was Jewish” and that four people had died when he entered the supermarket He also claimed to be a member of Islamic State (Isis) Agence France-Presse said the brothers had come out shooting from the printer’s warehouse where they had been surrounded since early morning The local MP had earlier told iTele that they had told negotiators they wanted “to die as martyrs” Saïd and Chérif Kouachi a company employee managed to hide from the two gunmen throughout the day under a cardboard box escaping unharmed after being able to speak to police on the phone and explain the layout of the warehouse unidentified man – thought to be an accomplice of Coulibaly – also died at the kosher store at the Porte de Vincennes Citing reliable police and judicial sources French media reported that police timed their raid on the supermarket as Coulibaly was at prayer: he reportedly used the store’s phone and failed to hang up French police storm supermarket in Port de Vincennes GuardianAt the end of an extraordinary day that swung wildly between the two separate incidents François Hollande described the past three days’ events as “a tragedy for the nation” I am proud of them,” and said France “has not finished with these threats the French president met the far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen at the Elysée Palace while France prepared for a “Republican march” on Sunday which David Cameron and his German The Charlie Hebdo bloodbath prompted a global outpouring of outrage with tens of thousands of people thronging to rallies in support of press freedom under the slogan “jesuischarlie” (“I am Charlie”) Barack Obama was the latest to sign a book of condolence in Washington inscribing “Vive la France!” while in Paris thousands had gathered on a day of national mourning and the Eiffel Tower dimmed its lights to honour the dead who have moved into the offices of the daily paper Libération plan a special edition of one million copies on Wednesday A wanted notice naming Coulibaly as a suspect in the Montrouge shooting also said police were hunting for a woman Amedy Coulibaly, left, and Hayat Boumeddiene. Photograph: Getty ImagesIt was unclear on Friday night whether or not she was also involved in the supermarket hostage-taking although Paris prosecutor François Molins said that she and Coulibaly had spoken more than 500 times to the Kouachi brothers over the phone. Questions were being asked about how three men with known jihadi links had been able to carry out the attacks. Chérif Kouachi, 32, was jailed for 18 months for his role in a network sending volunteers to fight alongside al-Qaida in Iraq between 2003 and 2005. According to L’Obs newsweekly, Coulibaly, 32, who had a list of convictions for theft and drug offences, was “very close” to Chérif. Both were also investigated in June 2010 on suspicion of being implicated in a plot to break a militant leader out of jail. At Dammartin, a witness interviewed by France Info radio said he had alerted police after seeing the Kouachi brothers, who were inside the print company, Création Tendance Découverte (CDT), as he arrived at the building. “My client came to the door,” the witness, Didier, said. “I shook his hand, and the hand of one of the terrorists. They said: ‘It’s the police. Get out.’ ” He had not recognised the men and thought they were police officers, until one said: “We don’t kill civilians, anyway.” About 1,000 children were evacuated from Dammartin’s schools and local hospitals were placed on alert. Swat teams deployed snipers on roofs and half a dozen helicopters buzzed low over the town. One resident, Grégory, told BFMTV by telephone: “Everyone here is blocked in their homes. There are four or five helicopters flying overhead and an extraordinary number of police and gendarmes.” At Porte de Vincennes, the entire area was swamped with police who shut down the main Paris ringroad, as well as schools and shops in the area. Authorities ordered all residents to stay indoors. The spectacular attacks came as it emerged that the brothers had been on a US terror watch list “for years”. The head of MI5 said Islamist militants were planning other “mass casualty attacks against the west” and that intelligence services might be powerless to stop them. He praised the police (“we are proud of you”) He talked about the difference between Islam and extremism and urged people to turn out for a unity rally on Sunday Security measures were being taken so that the French people could “live quietly,” he said “But we must remain vigilant.” In that project “Freedom is always stronger than barbarity lighting up the woods near the printing plant and the darkening street in Paris snipers and members of France's special forces took positions on nearby rooftops French authorities had said that eighty thousand first responders had been mobilized A school near the supermarket was evacuated and the village of Dammartin-en-Goële was essentially cordoned off named Hayat Boumediene; Le Monde and others reported that she was Coulibaly’s “companion.” The nature of Coulibaly’s association with the Kouachi brothers and of his possible involvement in the Charlie Hebdo massacre isn't yet completely clear; there are reports that he and one of the brothers (An eighteen-year-old had been named as a suspected getaway-car driver but his schoolmates have said he was in class at the time.) All three men were born in France  Videos from the Charlie Hebdo office during the attack capture the gunmen saying "Allahu Akbar," and a shootout on a highway between the gunmen The gunmen in Dammartin-en-Goële fled into the factory—two men whose attack had targeted journalism itself about to meet their end in a printing plant One of the questions for the next hours will be whether they then communicated in some way with Coulibaly or was it the first big building the gunman saw with the word “kosher” on it a Paris neighborhood with a rich Jewish history said that the evening services were being cancelled You don't have permission to access the page you requested. What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed. 5. Charlie Hebdo suspects killed on Friday. By Wilson Andrews, Larry Buchanan, David Howley, Haeyoun Park, Sergio Peçanha, Patrick Smith, Archie Tse, Tim Wallace, and Karen Yourish The police killed two brothers who had links to Al Qaeda in Yemen and were suspected in the massacre at a Paris newspaper office. In a nearly simultaneous raid, officers also killed an alleged associate of the brothers who had held hostages in a kosher supermarket. Hamyd Mourad, 18, suspected in an assault on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, walked into a police station northeast of Paris and gave himself up. The other suspects are two brothers, Said and Chérif Kouachi. Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker An operation by French police special forces – three commandos in black appeared briefly in the gloom – had ended in hard-won success Lying dead outside the building were Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, who had emerged, guns blazing, before being cut down in a hail of bullets. The two brothers had been at the centre of a massive manhunt since Wednesday, when they stormed the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo one murdered in the street with a clinical shot to the head The raid came after a day of extraordinary drama in France, and a second siege which played out on the terrified streets of Paris. Within minutes of the Dammartin explosions, police stormed a kosher supermarket in the Porte de Vincennes area. Another gunman – 32-year-old Amédy Coulibaly – had taken shoppers hostage there on Friday lunchtime Coulibaly was part of the same jihadi cell as the Kouachis and he reportedly demanded the safe passage of his friends in the printing works There were loud booms as commandos in Paris went in straight through the front door A few heart-stopping minutes later they emerged leading – and in one case carrying – a party of dazed But then came news that four hostages had been shot dead too, with four critically wounded. Police officials said the hostages had died at the beginning of the Paris siege when Coulibaly opened fire inside the building with a Kalashnikov It was a deeply dispiriting conclusion to three days of carnage in and around the French capital The numbers told their own doleful story: 17 people dead including a policewoman shot dead by Coulibaly on Thursday The police operation to find the killers concentrated on a large area of woodland in rural Picardy Then at 8.10am on Friday the brothers surfaced in the small village of Montagny-Sainte-Félicité But they had a problem: the Renault Clio they hijacked in Paris – telling the driver “We’re al-Qaida in Yemen A local teacher watched the two suspects seize her grey Peugeot dressed in black and carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher They exited the village and made for the N2 motorway north-east of Paris The suspects were forced to dump their Peugeot and run across a field The brothers’ options were rapidly shrinking as the manhunt entered what looked like its final stages They found themselves in a small industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goële sits in a flat basin surrounded by low hills; nearby is Charles de Gaulle airport The two fugitives took refuge in a local printing works At 9am a man called Didier popped into the building for an appointment with the owner Standing next to Michel was a strange figure dressed in black wearing combat gear and with a bulletproof vest “We all shook hands and my client told me to leave,” Didier told French radio we don’t kill civilians.” Didier thought the encounter “strange” exiting through blue-painted doors into a car park Within minutes armed police teams sealed off the area The small rural community found itself plunged into uncertainty and dread Teachers taking classes at the village’s three schools shooed small pupils away from windows; adults and children sat on the floor together and sang nursery rhymes There are four or five helicopters flying overhead and an extraordinary number of police and gendarmes,” one resident The suspects had taken refuge inside the utilitarian cube-shaped office of Creation Tendance Découverte a small family printing business employing five people The drama was taking place just 300 metres from his home We’re scared,” 14-year-old Louis Zenon said It appeared only a matter of time before the terrible national trauma of the previous 72 hours was brought to a conclusion By late morning the police edged closer towards the two-storey building; sharpshooters took up positions on a neighbouring roof There were reports that the Kouachi brothers had taken one person – possibly Michel – hostage And then at 1.30pm local time came shattering reports of another hostage situation A man brandishing a Kalashnikov had burst in to the ground-floor supermarket The dark grey building sits in rue Albert Wellemetz a side street close to a busy intersection Emblazoned on the side are the words: “Hyper Cacher” or Super Kosher Nearby is a petrol station and a delicatessen told French media: “There was an individual – African – who had a Kalashnikov … and he immediately went into the deli and he started shooting.” Fabian said at least two people had been killed The rapidly unfolding crisis was turning into a nightmare for the authorities who found themselves dealing with a ruthless and diffuse enemy capable of making mayhem in multiple locations and yet at that moment they seemed powerless Police swiftly identified the gunman as Coulibaly It was the same man they suspected of shooting down the 25-year-old trainee policewoman on Thursday morning in the southern suburb of Montrouge Colette Cymbor said her 18-year-old daughter would normally have finished school at 4pm. “I spoke to her and she said they’ve not had lessons this afternoon,” she said. With tensions running high and amid the constant scream of sirens, the crowd broke into spontaneous applause when a contingent of police arrived on foot. Kevin Debuire, who was also waiting for Cymbor’s daughter Mélodie, said he was becoming increasingly concerned about taking the Metro after the spate of attacks. According to a local councillor, Yves Albarello, the brothers had told negotiators: “We want to die as martyrs.” Reports suggest that the commandos hacked inside the CCTV cameras inside the printing shop. They also shut down all mobile communications. When the operation began the Kouachis reportedly came out firing – and were immediately shot. Miraculously, their hostage was released unharmed. The brothers got their wish. They left behind a traumatised and wounded nation, glancing nervously over its shoulder, wondering what’s next. French security forces faced two hostage-taking situations  French security forces on Friday dealt with two hostage-taking situations one north east of Paris where two terror suspects were holed up with a hostage in a printing plant and the other an attack on a kosher grocery store in Paris involving an armed gunmen who took at least five hostages The situation is continually developing. Below is a summary of the key events leading up to the point three hostage-takers were killed Friday. • Armed gunmen storm the Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and kill 12 people, including the editor and two police. The suspects, who are named by authorities as Chérif and Said Kouachi, flee the scene in a hijacked car, then abandon the getaway vehicle and steal another vehicle. Police lose track of the suspects just before midday. • Two of the suspects reportedly enter a petrol station in the north of France at 10.30am and steal food and petrol, forcing the staff to serve them at gunpoint. Staff at the Avia service stop in Villers Cotterets in the Aisne region report seeing rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles in the back of the stolen grey Renault Clio. • A female police officer suffers fatal injuries when a gunman wearing a bullet-proof vest opens fire on her and a street cleaner in Montrouge, a southern suburb of Paris, shortly before 9am. The woman dies of her injuries later in the day. The street cleaner, who has not been identified, is seriously injured. • The police-hunt for the two suspects linked to Wednesday’s attack on the Paris offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo enters its third day, with armed police focusing on the rural area in the Picardy region of France, north-east of Paris. • 8.30am: Gunfire is reported near the Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris. A car chase ensues between police and the suspects in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele and shots are fired. • 9am: The suspects enter a printing business just outside of Dammartin-en-Goele which is close to local schools. Residents are asked to stay indoors, stay away from windows and keep children at home. • 10.20am: A spokesman for the French Interior Ministry reports they believe the Charlie Hebdo suspects are in the building. Reports emerge that the siege involves a hostage. French anti-terrorist forces surround the complex. • 12pm: Dammartin town hall confirms one hostage has been taken at the printing building, the BBC reports. • 12.30pm: Reports begin emerging of a separate shooting in a Jewish grocery store in the south-eastern area of Paris. • 1pm: French media reports that hostages including women and children have been taken inside the supermarket in Vincennes. Police later confirm to The Independent that women and children are indeed among the hostages. Schools near to the supermarket are put into lockdown. • 1.30pm AFP reports that two people in the hostage situation in the supermarket have died. Officials have not confirmed these reports. • 1.40pm French police issue an appeal for witnesses to Thursday’s shooting where a policewoman died. People the police want to speak to in connection with the shooting are named as Hayat Boumeddiene, a female, and a man called Amedy Coulibaly. • 1.44pm: Eyewitnesses describe the moment a hostage-taker allegedly opened fire in the supermarket: "People were buying things when a man came in with a rifle and started shooting in all directions. I ran out. The shooting continued for several seconds." • 2pm: Schools near the kosher supermarket where five hostages are being held remain closed. • 2pm: Police name Coulibaly as wanted in connection with the siege at the supermarket. Le Monde reports that Boumeddiene, 26, has been Coulibaly’s partner since 2010 and lived in his home while he was serving a prison sentence. • 3pm: The Associated Press reports a gunman in the grocery store has threatened to kill hostages if police storm the building where the Charlie Hebdo massacre suspects are holed up. Europe 1 reports that the a daughter of a woman inside the store received a call from her mother, who said: "I am in the shop, I love you". • 3.45pm: It emerges that the Kouachi brothers were on a British watch and no-fly list to prevent them from entering the UK or passing through a British airport. • 3.55pm: Gunshots are heard at the scene of the siege in Dammartin-en-Goele and smoke can be seen above the building. • 4pm: AFP reports that official sources as saying police launched an assault on the printworks where the Charlie Hebdo suspects were. • 4.10pm: Six loud and very quick explosions are heard at the kosher grocery store where the gunman is holding people hostage. • 4.15pm: AFP reports that both the Kouachi brothers are dead, while the person held hostage by them has been freed. The suspects allegedly came out of the printworks building firing at security forces. • 4.30pm: Several hostages at the Paris supermarket are also freed, AFP reports. Le Monde reports that the hostage-taker at the grocery store is also dead. • 4.50pm: French security forces confirm the third gunman has been killed. • 5pm: Reuters and French media report four hostages have died. These reports are not yet confirmed by police. Two major hostage operations are under way in France, as police cornered suspected members of the terror cell behind Wednesday’s massacre at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The two brothers suspected of carrying out the magazine attack were surrounded by police inside a printing house in the small industrial town of Dammartin-en-Goele, north-east of Paris. One MP said they told negotiators they “want to die as martyrs”. Hours later a man suspected of killing a young policewoman in Montrouge on Thursday – identified in a police alert as Amedy Coulibaly, 32 – launched an attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris. The incident at Porte de Vincennes in eastern Paris is thought to involve at least five hostages, including women and children. Unconfirmed reports also said two people had been killed in a shootout outside the supermarket. Police also said they were looking for a woman, Hayat Boumeddiene, in connection with the Montrouge shooting. It was unclear whether or not Boumeddiene – reported in the French media to be the partner of Coulibaly – was also involved in the supermarket hostage-taking. Hayat Boumeddiene and Amedy Coulibaly. Photograph: Prefecture de police/EPAFrench media had earlier reported a possible connection between brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi – the suspects in the Charile Hebdo attack – and Coulibaly, who appears to have been part of the same Paris-based jihadi group that helped French radicals leave the country to fight in Iraq and Syria. French interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet told reporters in Dammartin-en-Goele that he was “not able to confirm with certainty” reports that the Kouachi brothers had taken one or more hostages. It was unclear whether police in Dammartin had spoken to the Kouachis. Brandet said: “Attempts were being made … as a top priority” to establish contact. But Yves Albarello, UMP MP for Seine-et-Marne, told @itele television that the fugitives had “declared they wanted to die as martyrs”. At Porte de Vincennes in Paris, BFM TV reported the hostage-taker had been heard to shout “You know who I am” before barricading himself inside the building. AFP reported that at least one person had been injured at the supermarket, on the Avenue de la Porte de Vincennes. At Dammartin, an eyewitness interviewed by France Info radio said he alerted police after seeing the Kouachi brothers, who were inside the company, Création Tendance Découverte (CDT), when he arrived. “My client came to the door,” the witness, Didier, told the station. “I shook his hand, and the hand of one of the terrorists. They said: ‘It’s the police. Get out. In any case we don’t kill civilians.’” Didier said he had not recognised the men and thought at first they were police officers. He said: “They were dressed like special forces, black uniform, bullet-proof vests … heavily armed, Kalashnikov-type rifles. If he hadn’t said, ‘We don’t kill civilians,’ it could have been the police.” French media identified the company as CDT, which manufactures signage and exhibition stands for other companies. Based in Paris, it employs five people at its workshop and storage depot in Dammartin, a town of 8,000 inhabitants now in lockdown. A thousand children have been evacuated from the town’s schools and local hospitals have been placed on alert. One resident, Grégory, told BFMTV by telephone: “Everyone here is blocked in their homes. There are four of five helicopters flying overhead and an extraordinary number of police and gendarmes.” French gendarmes stand by as children are evacuated from a school in Dammartin-en-Goele. Photograph: DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty ImagesIrène, 82, who lives in the road along from CDT, told Libération: “I saw a lot of police officers in the street, so I switched on my television. That’s how I found out what was happening. I’m scared, I’m really scared. All my children a calling me.” Two of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport’s runways were closed because of their proximity to the operation, forcing flights to land on its two southerly runways. Some flights were reportedly rerouted, Le Parisien reported. The Paris prosecutor’s office denied reports that one or more people were killed in the shootout, which took place at about 8.30am at a roadblock outside Dammartin, about half an hour by car from the large wooded area where the gunmen are thought to have hidden on Thursday night. Charlie Hebdo shooting suspects surrounded by police GuardianThe two men, suspected to have shot and killed 10 members of Charlie Hebdo’s staff and two policemen in a cold-blooded attack at the satirical magazine’s Paris offices on Wednesday, were apparently heading back towards the capital after abandoning the Renault Clio they had been travelling in at the village of Montagny-Sainte-Félicité, where they hijacked a grey Peugeot 206. “The car was taken at around 8.10am,” Jean-Paul Douet, the mayor of Montagny-Sainte-Félicité told Le Parisien. “The village teacher arrived at her school to see a car being hijacked in front of her. She saw their weapons, and in particular their rocket-propelled grenade launcher.” At a morning meeting with France’s prefects at the interior ministry, the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, said it would “doubtless be necessary to take new measures” against the threat to the country from terrorism in the wake of Wednesday’s attack. “We are in a war on terrorism. We are not in a war against a religion, against a civilisation,” Valls said, adding that the government’s policies had ensured that five planned terrorist attacks against France had been foiled. Tens of thousands of police, gendarmes and troops were deployed in the hunt for the gunmen on Thursday, using sniffer dogs, heat-seeking cameras and helicopters in and around around the towns of Longpont, Crépy and Villers-Cotterêts in the Aisne département off the N2 motorway, close to a petrol station the brothers were alleged to have robbed on Thursday morning. Graphic designer Lilian Lepère spent eight hours hidden under a sink at the printing business in Dammartin He simply heard the voices of the brothers: one had approached and opened the doors of a nearby closet During the eight hours he spent huddled in the cramped space he managed to contact the police with his mobile phone; sending information on the brothers' location and actions without alerting them to his presence In one heart-stopping moment one of the brothers took a drink from the sink "My back was against the pipe and I could feel the water flowing Carefully he texted his father: 'I am hidden on the first floor "I followed the instructions of my saviours," Mr Lepère told France TV Info. "At the time of the assault, my first feeling was freedom. "Because it had been eight hours I expect them [the police ] to conduct an assault. I had a huge pain: buttocks, legs, back ... everywhere." In the interview Mr Lepère thanked the manager of the printing press, Michel Catalano, who had warned him of Kouachi brothers’ arrival. "I feel fortunate and happy to see my family," he said. risked his life hiding in a cardboard box under a sink and texting information to the police while only yards from the armed Kouachi brothers an employee of the family-run print works the pair had burst into while on the run sent tactical information to the police while hiding in the upstairs canteen for seven hours A source told the AFP news agency Lepere was “terrified” but managed to continue his secret communications undetected Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters he had sent “tactical elements such as his location inside the premises” as he listened to the gunmen talking and had relayed what he could hear to the police Lepere sent a text message to his father: “I am hidden on the first floor the owner of the printing business who was taken prisoner by the brothers as they holed up at his office on an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goele had spotted them armed with assault rifles and a rocket launcher Knowing he and his employee could not both hide from the killers “I could immediately see there was a situation of danger He offered the intruders a drink and made coffee for them before one of his suppliers arrived at around 9pm “I told those people my supplier really had nothing to do there He was worried the Kouachis would find his employee’s hiding place “I knew Lilian was hidden but I had no idea where I didn’t want them to go to the end of the building.” After the brothers emerged from the building and had opened fire before being killed police drove an armoured car into the building to free Lepere This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025 The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media Site developed by     Copyright © Yedioth Internet. 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The Financial Express Two al-Qaida-linked brothers suspected in the Charlie Hebdo massacre came out of their hideaway with guns blazing Friday and were killed in a clash with security forces another hostage-taker in Paris was killed in a separate clash France has been high alert since the country’s worst terror attack in decades – the massacre Wednesday in Paris at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead After the two separate hostage-taking incidents began Friday city officials scrambled to protect residents and tourists from further attacks putting schools under lockdown and urging residents to stay indoors and remain vigilant explosions and gunshots rang out and white smoke rose up outside a printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goele Security forces had surrounded the building for most of the day a police SWAT forces were seen on the roof of the building and a police helicopter landed nearby it spokeswoman for the town near the Charles de Gaulle airport Another gunman who took at least five hostages Friday afternoon at a kosher grocery in Paris also died in a nearly simultaneous raid there said Gael Fabiano of the UNSA police union had earlier threatened to kill his hostages if French authorities launched an assault on the two brothers The two sets of hostage-takers know each other who was not authorized to discuss the rapidly developing situation One other police officer said three hostages also died at the grocery None could say what happened to the woman listed on a police bulletin as his accomplice Security forces stormed the Paris grocery near the Porte de Vincennes neighborhood minutes after news of clashes at the printing plant several people were seen being led out of the store It was not clear exactly how many hostages had been inside or how many were freed the Paris mayor’s office shut down all shops along Rosiers Street in the city’s famed Marais neighborhood in the heart of the tourist district the street is usually crowded with shoppers – French Jews and tourists alike The street is also only a kilometer (a half mile) away from Charlie Hebdo’s offices The gunman had burst shooting into the kosher store just a few hours before the Jewish Sabbath began declaring ”You know who I am,” the official recounted The attack came before sundown when the store was crowded with shoppers also believed responsible for the roadside killing of a Paris policewoman About 100 students were placed under lockdown in schools nearby and the highway ringing Paris was closed Hours before and 40 kilometers (25 miles) away helicopters and ambulances streamed toward Dammartin-en-Goele a small industrial town near Charles de Gaulle airport who had hijacked a car in a nearby town after more than two days on the run ”They said they want to die as martyrs,” Yves Albarello Charles de Gaulle closed two runways to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff or endangering planes Both brothers had ties to terrorist networks Cherif Kouachi was convicted of terrorism charges in 2008 for ties to a network sending jihadis to fight U.S A Yemeni security official said his brother is suspected of having fought for al-Qaida in Yemen Another senior security official said Said was in Yemen until 2012 Both officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation into Kouachi’s stay in Yemen have been detained for questioning in several regions The satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam although it also satirized other religions and political figures The weekly paper had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad and a sketch of Islamic State’s leader was the last tweet sent out by the irreverent newspaper a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the newspaper attack Charlie Hebdo plans a special edition next week Authorities around Europe have warned of the threat posed by the return of Western jihadis trained in warfare France counts at least 1,200 citizens in the war zone in Syria – headed there Both the Islamic State group and al-Qaida have threatened France home to Western Europe’s largest Muslim population A heated scuffle between the families of an IPS officer and an IT commissioner broke out at the RCB vs CSK match leading to complaints being filed at the police station The argument was over seating arrangements in the elite diamond box and one family was accused of abuse