Gunman killed, 4 others dead at Paris market

PARIS — Police stormed a kosher supermarket on the eastern edge of Paris on Friday, killing a gunman linked to the killing of a policewoman and a deadly attack on a French satirical newspaper.

Four people were killed when the gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, 32, entered the store, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said. Fifteen hostages in the store were later freed.

In a brief address to the nation, French President Francois Hollande described the attack in Paris' Porte de Vincennes — one of the main Jewish communities in the city — as a "horrific anti-Semitic act."

"We have to be vigilant," he said. "I am issuing a call to unity. This is our best weapon."

Several people — including two police officers — were reported wounded, and the hours-long standoff with Coulibaly ended amid gunshots near the supermarket Friday evening in Paris.

At the same time, explosions rattled a small printing warehouse northeast of the city where two brothers suspected in Wednesday's attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper were cornered by police.

The Kouachi brothers — Cherif, 32, and Said, 34 — were killed in a shootout with police, and the hostage they had taken was freed.

Earlier Friday, a police bulletin named Coulibaly and Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, as suspects in Thursday's shooting of policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27. Boumeddiene is the common-law wife and accomplice of Coulibaly. She remains at large and is believed to be armed and dangerous.

A police official told the Associated Press that Coulibaly threatened to kill hostages if authorities launched an assault on the two Kouachi brothers in the small industrial town of Dammartin-en-Goele, about 30 miles northeast of Paris.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the dual hostage situations, described the events as "clearly linked." He said Coulibaly declared, "You know who I am" when he stormed the market.

In a telephone interview with French broadcaster BFMTV during the standoff, Coulibaly claimed to belong to the Islamic State and said the attacks were "coordinated" with the Kouachi brothers. Cherif Kouachi, who also spoke to BFMTV, told the station he was sent and financed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

A senior French police official told The New York Times that Coulibaly was linked to the Kouachi brothers.

"We are sure that Coulibaly was in connection with the Kouachi brothers," police official Christophe Tirante said. "They knew each other and met several times. They are from the same generation."

Coulibaly had frequent contact with the Kouachi brothers within the jihadist elements of Paris district Buttes-Chaumont, which revolved around a mosque, French broadcaster RTL reported.

Residents of France's capital city remained on edge as the two hostage-taking standoffs unfolded Friday.

"The people in the neighborhood are scared," said Jean Vattel, 50, who took shelter for several hours in a nearby store when he heard gunshots at the kosher supermarket. "With everything that has happened in the last couple of days, I can't imagine how they wouldn't be."

Police ordered all shops along Rosiers Street in the Jewish neighborhood of Marais in central Paris closed Friday afternoon at the height of the hostage crisis, and the Grand Synagogue of Paris — the French capital's largest place of Jewish worship — shuttered.

Sacha Reingewirtz, 28, president of the French Jewish Student Union, said France is a dangerous place for people who clearly show they are Jewish.

"What the government is doing to protect us is not enough. I refuse to have Jews here living behind walls in fear of their lives," he said. "We need more than a security plan but an educational plan to fight against stereotypes."

Lackey reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Doug Stanglin in McLean, Va.; Angela Waters and Jabeen Bhatti in Berlin; the Associated Press