According to CNN reports, three of the terror suspects involved in the attack against Satirical Magazine “Charlie Hebdo” and slaying of policewoman have been killed in a bloody raid by security forces in France. However, the accomplice of one of the Hostage believed to be involved in the killing of the policewoman was able to escape and is currently on the run.
Cherif and Said Kouachi were the two brothers wanted for the past 48 hours in connection with the terror attack at the offices of the Charles Hebdo magazine and they were confirmed dead earlier in the day by a local mayor. In a possibly-connected attack to the Charles Hebdo massacre as well, it was also reported that a number of hostages were held in a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris and Hayat Boumeddiene, the 26-year-old woman reported wanted in Thursday’s fatal killing of a policewoman outside of Paris, escaped on Friday from the grocery store as confusion ensued while hostages began running away. Boumeddiene had reportedly been in the market with Amedy Coulibaly, the other suspect in Thursday’s deadly incident. Some police were injured in the operation at the Paris kosher grocery store, at least 10 hostages were able to escapte, 4 hostages and Coulibaly were also killed.
The French ambassador to the United States reportedly tweeted “The hostages being held at the market near Porte de Vincennes are alive, and “the terrorist is dead.”
Initial reports from CNN also confirmed that Said Kouachi, one of the two brothers suspected in the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 12 people had previously spent several months in Yemen in 2011, where he received weapons training and worked with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Patrick Pelloux, one of the columnists at Charlie Hebdo and a trained paramedic, who rushed to the offices when he heard about the shooting said to CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “I don’t know if I’m afraid anymore, because I’ve seen fear. I was scared for my friends, and they are dead,” ….. “I know that they didn’t want us to be quiet. They wanted us to continue to fight for these values, cultural pluralism, democracy and secularism, the respect of others. They would be assassinated twice, if we remained silent.”
