French security forces kill gunmen, end terror rampage
PARIS (AP) — With
explosions and gunfire, security forces Friday ended three days of
terror around Paris, killing the two al-Qaida-linked brothers who staged
a murderous rampage at a satirical newspaper and an accomplice who
seized hostages at a kosher supermarket to try to help the brothers
escape.
The worst
terrorist violence France has seen in decades killed at least 20 people,
including the three gunmen. A fourth suspect — the common law wife of
the market attacker — was still at large and believed to be armed.
Al-Qaida's
branch in Yemen said it directed the attack against the publication
Charlie Hebdo to avenge the honor of the Prophet Muhammad, a frequent
target of the weekly's satire.
The
brothers were not unknown to authorities: One had a terrorism-related
conviction for ties to a network sending fighters to battle American
forces in Iraq, and both were on the U.S. no-fly list, according to a
U.S. official.
President
Francois Hollande urged his nation to remain united and vigilant, and
the city shut down a famed Jewish neighborhood amid fears of more
violence.
"The threats facing France are not finished," Hollande said. "We are a free people who cave to no pressure."
The
drama, which played out on live TV and social media, began with the
brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi methodically massacring 12 people
Wednesday at the Charlie Hebdo offices, stopping to shoot a wounded
police officer in the head before escaping by car.
On
Thursday, a gunman police identified as Amedy Coulibaly shot a
policewoman to death south of Paris, although authorities were not sure
at first if it was related to the Charlie Hebdo shootings.
It all ended at dusk
Friday with near-simultaneous raids in two locations: a printing plant
in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris, where the
Kouachis were holed up, and the Paris supermarket where Coulibaly killed
four hostages and threatened more violence unless the police let the
Kouachis go.
As scores of black-clad security forces surrounded
both sites, booming explosions, heavy gunfire and dense smoke heralded
the news that the twin sieges finally had ended.The three gunmen were dead — but the authorities also discovered four dead hostages at the market. Sixteen hostages were freed, one from the printing plant and 15 others from the store.
The
attackers had ties both to each other and to terrorist activities that
reached back years and extended from Paris to al-Qaida in Yemen. They
epitomized Western authorities' greatest fear: Islamic radicals who
trained abroad and came home to stage attacks.
After the killings
at the Charlie Hebdo offices, Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his 34-year-old
brother Said led police on a chase around northeastern France, robbing a
gas station and stealing a car before ending up at the printing plant
in Dammartin-en-Goele, near Charles de Gaulle airport. One of the
brothers was wounded in the neck at one point during a shootout with
police after he commandeered a car, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins
said.Authorities said the brothers temporarily took a man hostage at the plant but let him go, and a second man was later discovered to have been hiding inside the building.
A member of the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula gave a statement in English to The Associated Press saying the group's leadership "directed the operations and they have chosen their target carefully."
The brothers were cornered there for much of the day before the explosions and gunfire rang out in the twilight and a police SWAT team clambered onto the roof.
"They said they want to die as martyrs," Yves Albarello, a local lawmaker inside the command post, told French television station i-Tele.
At the kosher grocery near the Porte de Vincennes neighborhood of the capital, the gunman burst in shooting just a few hours before the Jewish Sabbath began, declaring "You know who I am," the official recounted.
The attack came before sundown when the store would have been crowded with shoppers, and Hollande called it "a terrifying anti-Semitic act."
Coulibaly killed the four people in the market shortly after entering, Molins said.
Several people wounded in the grocery store were able to flee and get medical care, the official said.
The
mayor's office also shut down all shops along Rosiers Street in the
city's famed Marais neighborhood in the heart of the tourist district.
Hours before the Jewish Sabbath, the street is usually crowded with
shoppers. The street is also only a kilometer (half-mile) from Charlie
Hebdo's offices.
Charles de Gaulle airport, not far from the
standoff in Dammartin-en-Goele, briefly closed two runways to arrivals,
and Hollande held a series of crisis meetings with his security team
throughout the day.Police released a photo of Coulibaly and his wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, described as an accomplice.
Authorities increasingly grew to see links between the attackers after they discovered that Boumeddiene and the companion of one of the Kouachi brothers had exchanged about 500 phone calls, Molins said.
He added that several people have been given preliminary charges in the investigation. They include relatives of the three gunmen.
Minutes before police stormed both sites, Coulibaly had threatened more violence if authorities launched an assault on the two brothers, a police official said. A group of people holed up in the supermarket's freezer — apparently unbeknownst to the gunman.
The TV station said Coulibaly didn't hang up properly after the phone call and that this allowed police to hear him saying a final prayer before his death, perhaps suggesting that this prompted the police raid.
In the final assault, phalanxes of security forces converged on the store entrance behind a flash from a stun grenade — and fired inside. Frenzied civilians — one of them carrying a toddler — scurried out under escort by helmeted police in body armor.
Police said Coulibaly had been a co-suspect with Cherif Kouachi in a court case involving terrorism that never made it to trial.
Cherif Kouachi was convicted of terrorism charges in 2008 for ties to a network sending jihadis to fight U.S. forces in Iraq.
According to a Yemeni security official, Said Kouachi is suspected of having fought for al-Qaida in Yemen. Another senior security official added that Said was in Yemen until 2012.
Both officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation into Kouachi's stay in Yemen.
Both
brothers were also on the U.S. no-fly list, a senior U.S.
counterterrorism official said, speaking on condition of anonymity
because the official was not authorized to discuss foreign intelligence
publicly.
The attacks in France as well as a hostage siege last
month in Sydney and the October killing of a solder near Canada's
parliament prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a global travel
warning for Americans. It also cites an increased risk of reprisals
against U.S. and Western targets for the U.S.-led intervention against
Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.
Authorities
around Europe have warned of the threat posed by the return of Western
jihadis trained in warfare. France counts at least 1,200 citizens in the
war zone in Syria — headed there, returned or dead. Both the Islamic
State group and al-Qaida have threatened France, home to Western
Europe's largest Muslim population.
The publication Charlie Hebdo
had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam, although it also
lampooned other religions and political figures. It had caricatured the
Prophet Muhammad, and a sketch of Islamic State's leader was the last
tweet sent by the irreverent newspaper minutes before the attack.
Eight
journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor
were killed in the newspaper attack, including the paper's editor.
Charlie Hebdo plans a special edition next week, produced in the offices
of another paper.
..................................................................................
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น