Paris Shooting Suspects In Hostage Standoff
The suspects in the shooting at Charlie Hebdo magazine are inside a printing company near Paris, holding an employee hostage.
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A major operation to detain the suspects, identified as French citizens Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, is under way in the village of Dammartin-en-Goele, authorities said. Helicopters and hundreds of security forces backed by ambulances streamed to the town, which is near Charles de Gaulle airport. French special forces could be seen on a nearby rooftop.
The gunmen say they want to die as martyrs.
Friday morning unfolded with dramatic speed and unpredictable turns as about 80,000 police continued their mammoth manhunt for the prime suspects in Wednesday’s attack. Earlier in the morning, the brothers fled the manhunt around the wooded areas further north of Paris in a Peugeot car they hijacked on the road, according to French media reports. Shortly after there was sounds of gunfire, as the suspects fled towards CTF Creation Tendance Decouverte, a sign making and printing factory in an industrial zone close to Paris’s main airport. At least one runway was closed.
For the first time since Wednesday, French officials sounded confident that they were close to a climax in the manhunt. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters on Friday morning that SWAT teams had the men cornered in the factory in Dammartin-en-Goèle and that special forces were on site, ready to move in. “Operations will be conducted in the hours, the minutes,” he said shortly after 10 a.m.
