Charlie shooters gunned down - Raids end twin sieges in Paris

Video footage shows an explosion at the kosher
 supermarket near Porte de Vincennes in Paris where
the second hostage situation unfolded on Friday. (Reuters)

AP, Reuters, The Times, London, and NYTNS with TT, Paris, Jan. 9: Explosions and gunfire rang out as a three-day terror rampage with two hostage situations in Paris ended in the death of two brothers, their associate and four hostages.

The brothers in their thirties, suspects in the murderous rampage at the satirical journalCharlie Hebdo, broke free from a hideout, guns blazing, and were gunned down, according to initial reports.

But a police spokesperson said "special counter-terrorism forces... broke down the door and took them by surprise".

A few minutes later, commandos launched an assault on a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris, killing an accomplice who had taken several hostages and was demanding that the gunmen be allowed to go free. Kosher markets sell products that meet the requirements of Jewish tenets.

It was the worst terror spree France has seen in decades. At least seven people were killed today - the three terrorists and four hostages in the supermarket - two days after 12 people were massacred in the attack on the publication.

The three terrorists who had seized hostages at two separate locations had ignited fear across Paris and prompted France to mobilise nearly 90,000 security personnel, one of the largest dragnets of modern times.

The fate of a fourth suspect - the wife of the supermarket attacker - remained unclear, and Paris shut down a famed Jewish neighbourhood amid fears that a wider terror cell might launch further attacks. Officials in Paris put schools under lockdown and urged residents to stay indoors and remain vigilant.

Sixteen hostages were freed, one from the warehouse where the brothers were holed up and 15 from the grocery.

The police released photos of Amedy Coulibaly, the supermarket hostage-taker, and his wife, Hayet Boumddiene. 

The two sets of attackers had ties to each other and to terrorism that reached back years and extended from Paris to al Qaida in Yemen. They epitomised the West's greatest fear: radicals who trained abroad and came home to stage attacks.

Similarly, the prospect of multiple attacks is one that has troubled western security services since militants hit a number of targets in Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people.

The brothers - Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34 - had taken shelter in a building in the small industrial town of Dammartin-en-Goele, set in marsh and woodland. The town is near the Charles de Gaulle airport. 

The Kouachi brothers led police on a chase around northeast France, robbing a gas station on Thursday and stealing a car on Friday morning before seizing a hostage at a printing plant.

The police said the brothers had been located at the printing warehouse by helicopters equipped with heat sensors. Shortly afterwards, residents saw security forces drop down on ropes from helicopters hovering over the area. Aircraft had been advised to avoid certain runways at the airport as a precaution.

In the afternoon, automatic gunfire rang out, followed by blasts and then silence. Amid thick fog, a helicopter landed on the building's roof, signalling the end of the assault.

Coulibaly, who took hostages at the kosher grocery and was suspected to have killed a policewoman yesterday, died in a near-simultaneous raid.

Minutes before the storming, Coulibaly had threatened to kill five hostages if French authorities launched an assault on the two brothers, a police officer said.

"It is indeed an appalling anti-Semitic act," President Francois Hollande said.

Trying to fend off further attacks, the Paris mayor's office shut down all shops along Rosiers Street in the city's famed Marais neighbourhood in the heart of the tourist district. Hours before the Jewish Sabbath, the street is usually crowded with shoppers. The street is only a kilometre away from Charlie Hebdo's offices.