Charlie Hebdo hunt: Bloody end to sieges
10 Jan BBC
Two sieges in France have been brought to a bloody end, with three
gunmen and four hostages killed.
Two brothers who killed 12 in an attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine on
Wednesday were shot dead as they fled a warehouse north of Paris, firing
at police.
Shortly afterwards in eastern Paris, anti-terrorist forces stormed a
kosher supermarket where hostages were being held by a gunman with
reported links to the brothers.The gunman and four hostages died.
French police believe the captives were killed before the assault on
the Hypercasher supermarket near Porte de Vincennes, Paris prosecutor
Francois Molins told reporters late on Friday.Four hostages were
seriously injured and 15 were rescued unhurt.
Two police officers were injured.The operation was launched after the
end of the siege in Dammartin-en-Goele, 35km (22 miles) north of
Paris.The two brothers there, Cherif and Said Kouachi, came out of the
building firing at police and were killed. Two police officers were
injured.
One hostage there had earlier been released and a second employee,
who was hiding in the building’s cafeteria, was freed by police after
the shooting ended.French President Francois Hollande described the
events as “a tragedy for the nation”.In a televised address, he thanked
the security forces for their “bravery [and] efficiency”, but added that
France still faced threats. “We have to be vigilant. I also ask you to
be united - it’s our best weapon,” he said.”We must be implacable
towards racism,” he added, saying that the supermarket attack was an
“appalling anti-Semitic act”.”Those who committed these acts, these
fanatics, have nothing to do with the Muslim faith.”Meanwhile, French
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said there had been a “clear failing” in
French intelligence.
“If 17 people die, this means mistakes have been made,” he said,
including those killed in attacks on Wednesday and Thursday in the
toll.Separately, a man who took two women hostage in a jewellery store
in the southern city of Montpellier on Friday, surrendered to police
early on Saturday. Police said his motive was not known but that there
was no link to Islamist violence.The actions of France’s highly trained
GIGN counter-terrorist police brought a swift end to a crisis that began
53 hours earlier with the armed raid on the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo.
But a number of important questions remain. Was this attack planned
and orchestrated from abroad and if so by whom? Is there any credence to
claims made by the gunmen before they died that they were linked to
al-Qaeda in Yemen and to Islamic State, two sometimes competing
organisations? And what was the real target here, Charlie Hebdo or the
entire French nation?Questions are already being asked of French police
and intelligence about how the two Kouachi brothers, well-known for
their extremist views and already on US and European no-fly watchlists,
were left free to acquire assault rifles and carry out the murderous
raid on 7 January.
Beyond this, France has a deeper problem, coping with a growing
number of violent jihadists who will see this week as only the
beginning.The police assaults came after three tense days in France.
The Kouachi brothers killed 12 people and injured 11 more in
Wednesday’s attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical
magazine.The unprecedented attack shocked France and there has been an
outpouring of sympathy and solidarity worldwide.The brothers then went
on the run, before being surrounded at Dammartin.
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