PARIS : Two brothers suspected of slaughtering 12 people in an Islamist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo held one person hostage today as police cornered the gunmen northeast of the capital.
The hostage drama unfolded at a printing business in the small town of Dammartin-en-Goele, only 12 kilometres from Paris’s main Charles de Gaulle airport, police sources said.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed that an operation was under way to “neutralise” the suspects as the massive manhunt appeared to be reaching a dramatic climax with helicopters buzzing overhead and a huge deployment of security forces.
“An operation is under way which is set to neutralise the perpetrators of the cowardly attack carried out two days ago,” Cazeneuve said in a televised statement.
Police had already exchanged fire with the pair in a high-speed car chase. Prosecutors told AFP there had been “no casualties reported” in the immediate aftermath of the shoot-out.
Prior to the standoff, the suspects had hijacked a Peugeot 206 nearby from a woman who said she recognised them as the brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, accused of killing 12 people in Wednesday’s attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
President Francois Hollande rushed to the interior meeting to be briefed on the situation as Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared that France was at “war” with terrorism, but “not in a war against religion.”
“It will without doubt be necessary to take measures” to respond to the terrorist “threat,” he said.
Two Air France planes were forced to abort their landing at Paris’s main Charles-de-Gaulle airport and go round again ‘due to the presence of helicopters… Flying over the zone at low-altitude,” the airline said.
The spectacular endgame came as it emerged the brothers had been on a US terror watch list “for years”.
And as fears spread in the wake of the attack, the head of Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5 warned that Islamist militants were planning other “mass casualty attacks against the West” and that intelligence services may be powerless to stop them. (AGENCIES)
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