1. French police seal off town as they close in on Paris shooting suspects
DAMMARTIN-EN-GOELE, France – French anti-terrorist police surround a small northern town and helicopters hover overhead as at least one person is taken hostage in a print works by two men believed to have carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
A gunman linked to the Charlie Hebdo killers was today holding up to five hostages in a Kosher store in eastern Paris.
Shots rang out close to the Porte de Vincennes while the two brothers believed to be behind the attack on the satirical magazine were themselves holed up north of the capital.
French police have now named the suspected hostage taker as Amedy Coulibaly, 33, while a woman named Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is also believed to be involved.
‘There is a hostage situation – shots have been fired,’ said a Paris police source, who said armed officers were attending the scene.
3. Charlie Hebdo hunt: Double hostage crisis in France
Police in France have surrounded a supermarket in south-east Paris, as the BBC’s Stephen Sackur reports
A gunman has seized hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris as police in northern France have cornered the two Charlie Hebdo massacre suspects.
Armed police flooded the Porte de Vincennes area of eastern Paris after the man reportedly opened fire and took up to five people prisoner.
4. MI5 boss warns ‘we cannot stop every UK terror threat’
(Actually, yes they can. They just won’t name the enemy, so they cannot take the fight to them)
The threat of a terror attack in the UK is increasing and the security services cannot be expected to stop every plot, the head of MI5 has warned.
Speaking after the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, Andrew Parker said police and MI5 had “stopped three UK terrorist plots” in recent months.
5. Hostages taken at Paris kosher supermarket – police source (Reuters link)
PARIS, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Several people were taken hostage at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris on Friday after a shootout involving a man armed with two guns, a police source said.
There were unconfirmed local media reports that the man was the same as the one suspected of killing a policewoman in a southern suburb of Paris on Thursday.
A police source had told Reuters earlier he was a member of the same jihadist group as the two suspects in Wednesday’s attack at weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Thank you Maria J. UK Pete, M., Wrath of Khan, and all.
More to come shortly. On the bright side, a few more of these and we can stop whinging about whether or not people think we are racists.
According to @CNN, the French policewoman shot dead yesterday was in the vicinity of the intended target of attack: a Jewish primary school.
Telegraph @14.54 Paris police fear more attacks on Jewish neighourhoods and have ordered shop closures, according to AP
BREAKING: Police order all shops closed in famed Jewish neighborhood in central Paris far from attacks.
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 9, 2015
The mayor’s office in Paris announced the closures Friday of shops along the Rosiers street in Paris’ Marais neighborhood, in the heart of the tourist district and about a kilometer away from the offices of newspaper Charlie Hebdo where 12 people were killed on Wednesday.
Hours before the Jewish Sabbath, the street is usually especially rowded with shoppers – French Jews and tourists alike.
The Vincennes region of eastern Paris in which the second, grocery hostage situation is taking place has a large Jewish population.
There has also been speculation that the attack in which a policewoman was killed yesterday in Montrouge was an aborted attempt to attack a Jewish school there.