RAID and BRI raid on hostage taker in Paris

Assault RAID and BRI attack Vincenne Paris

BRI (Brigades de recherche et d'intervention - Police)
RAID (Recherche, assistance, intervention, dissuasion - Elite Forces Police)
PARIS - At least four people were killed by a gunman who took hostages in a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris, a police source told Reuters on Friday.

French media reported on Friday that the police raided the kosher supermarket where a gunman took at least five people hostage. A number of hostages were freed in the raid, local press reported.

Almost simultaneously in another part of Paris, the two brothers wanted for the shooting of 12 people at the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo were killed in a raid on Friday by security forces on the print works where they were holed up with a hostage, a government source said.

Le Monde newspaper quoted a police official as saying that the hostage-taker at the kosher supermarket in eastern Paris had also been killed. That hostage-taker is believed to have links to the same Islamist group as the two brothers.

French television images showed some people running out of the supermarket in eastern Paris. The exact fate of all the hostages there and at the one at the print works was not immediately clear.

Minutes earlier, loud explosions were heard near the supermarket and television images showed a large contingent of police storming the building.

The images showed a number of people believed to be the hostages running away from the building as police raided the area, firing their guns.