Friday's dramatic events in France so far
PARIS (AFP) - Developments up to 3:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Friday as the manhunt for the suspected killers of 12 people at Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris Wednesday and the perpetrators of a related killing of a policewoman Thursday culminate in a double hostage taking.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 9
- Elite police forces comb the countryside in the hunt for two brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, accused of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, as the pair spend a second night on the run.
- At 8:00 am police exchange fire during a car chase on the N2 highway northeast of Paris with two suspects who may be the brothers. The suspects have hijacked a Peugeot 206 in Montagny-Sainte-Felicite from a woman who said she recognised them as the wanted men.
- In the late morning, the two brothers take one person hostage at a small printing business named CTD in Dammartin-en-Goele, a village of 8,000 people, 42 kilometres (26 miles) to the north-east of Paris and only 12 kilometres from Paris's main Charles de Gaulle airport. The village is sealed off by police, with helicopters flying overhead.
- Some flights are unable to land at the airport, because army and police helicopters are flying at low altitudes.
- Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says a police operation is under way to "neutralise" the two suspects and attempts have been made to make contact with them.
- Schools near the building are evacuated, businesses shut down and local inhabitants barricaded in their homes.
- At 1:00 pm a gunman opens fire at a Jewish supermarket at Porte de Vincennes in eastern Paris and takes at least five people hostage. At least two people are killed in the attack, which is suspected of being carried out by the same gunman who shot dead a policewoman in Montrouge in southern Paris on Thursday. The suspect who thought to have links to the Kouachi brothers.
- In the early afternoon French police release mugshots of a man and woman wanted over the killing of the policewoman, who are now thought to be holed up with hostages in the supermarket.
