Two brothers suspected of a bloody attack on the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were killed when police stormed their hideout yesterday, while a second siege ended with the deaths of four hostages.
The violent end to the simultaneous stand-offs followed a police operation of unprecedented scale as France tackled one of the worst threats to its internal security in decades. The heavy loss of life over three consecutive days also risked fuelling anti-immigrant voices in the country and elsewhere in the West.
Officials said Cherif Kouachi and his brother Said, both in their thirties, died when anti-terrorist forces moved in on a print shop in the small town of Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris, where the chief suspects in Wednesday's attack had been holed up. The hostage they had taken was safe, an official said.
Automatic gunfire rang out, followed by blasts and then silence as smoke could be seen billowing from the roof of the print shop. Amid thick fog, a helicopter landed on the building's roof, signalling the end of the assault. A government source said the brothers had emerged from the building and opened fire on police before they were killed.
Minutes later police broke the second siege at a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris. A police union source said four hostages had died there along with a gunman, believed to have had links to the same Islamist group as the Kouachi brothers, who was holding them.
News footage of the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in the Vincennes district showed dozens of heavily armed police officers massed outside of two entrances. The assault began with gunfire and a loud explosion at the door, after which hostages were rushed out.
Reuters photographs showed a man holding an infant and looking distressed being herded into an ambulance by police. Others were carried in on stretchers.
French authorities have mobilised a force of nearly 90,000 since Wednesday's attack on Charlie Hebdo, a weekly that has long courted controversy by mocking Islam and other religions.
The Kouachi brothers were prime suspects in this attack when hooded gunmen shot dead 12 people including some of France's top satirical cartoonists along with two police officers.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday cautioned against turning the attack on the French satirical magazine by Islamic fanatics into a clash of civilisations.
Speaking before the French security forces stormed the suspected gunmen, Dr Muscat told a social gathering of journalists and members of civil society gathered at the Labour Party’s headquarters for the traditional New Year drinks.
He said there was consensus that freedom of speech should be defended but cautioned against tarring all Muslims with the same brush.
“We must not turn this into a clash of civilisations that will put off the moderate elements of Islam from further integrating in society,” Dr Muscat said, cautioning against the use of labels that put everyone in the same basket.