Locals are led away from the scene as police evacuate the area surrounding the kosher bakery in eastern Paris
A
Islamic militant holding six people hostage is threatening to kill his
captives if police attempt to storm the Charlie Hebdo terrorists
currently engaged in a standoff with police on the outskirts of Paris.
Today's
second hostage crisis emerged hours after the Charlie Hebdo killers
Cherif and Said Kouachi took one person captive at a business premises
near a Paris airport.
Police
say suspected hostage taker Amedy Coulibaly, 32, is using the hostages
as a bargaining chip to try and scupper the police response further
north.
He
is working with a woman called Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, considered ‘armed
and dangerous’, and is said to have yelled at police: 'You know who I
am' when they responded to the shooting.
Police have now ordered all shops in Paris' famed Jewish district to be immediately closed.
The
mayor's office in Paris announced the closures of shops along the
Rosiers street in Paris' Marais neighbourhood, in the heart of the
tourist district and about a kilometre away from the offices of
newspaper Charlie Hebdo where 12 people were killed on Wednesday.
French police have named the hostage taker as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, while also claimed a woman named Hayat Boumeddiene (left), 26, is involved
Police officers stop two people on a scooter at gunpoint as they arrive near the scene of the hostage taking
The pair are aggressively wrestled to the ground by police officers tasked with preventing anyone coming and going from the scene
A building is evacuated by members of the French special forces teams after at least six people were taken hostage by the gunman
A police officer is dressed in body armour as the hostage-taker is believed to be armed with assault rifles
A police officer takes aim upwards as he mans his position at the siege in eastern Paris
French police rest behind the cover of a small wall, while the hostage situation with Coulibaly drags on
Footage from a local broadcaster shows a team of heavily armed police officers swarming into the area. It has been reported more than one person has been taken hostage
Shots rang out close to the Porte de Vincennes while the two brothers believed to be behind the murderous attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine on Wednesday were themselves hold up north of the capital.
‘There is a hostage situation – shots have been fired,’ said a Paris police spokesman, who said up to five people were originally being held in Vincennes.
Coulibaly is believed to be the one responsible for shooting a policewoman dead in south Paris on Thursday. It has now been suggested the attack may have been an aborted attempt to attack a Jewish school.
A 20-year-old student is among the hostages taken at the kosher shop in Paris. The young woman, whose name remains unknown, called her uncle who works nearby from the basement of the building where she was being held.
Earlier reports that there was a serious incident developing near the Trocadero in central Paris were incorrect - it remains open and running after what was a false alarm.
The siege at the grocery store occurred after the Charlie Hebdo killers in Dammartin-en-Goele – currently holed up with a hostage at a business premises – were believed to have made contact with an associate.
Police immediately scrambled phone signals in the area – but not before the killers were able to make their call.
It is now feared that Said Kouachi and his brother Cheriff contacted Amedy Coulibaly – and possibly ordered him to take hostages in a bid to force police to allow them to escape.
It is not known whether Boumeddiene was in the Kosher store with Coulibaly.
It means that two sieges by suspected Islamic terrorists are playing out at the same time, as fears grew that they would be looking to cause another bloodbath.
Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27, was unarmed and directing traffic in Montrouge, in south Paris, when she was gunned down by Coulibay, who was still wearing body armour and using an automatic assault rifle.
The murderer has been identified by police who said he belonged to the Buttes Chaumont network, which sent Jihadi fighters to Iraq.
French police wearing body armour and carrying rifles stand guard at the cordoned off scene
It has been claimed Coulibaly has taken up to five people hostage in the kosher grocery store
A hooded police officer armed with an assault rifle crosses the ring road that circles Paris at its point east, near the hostage situation
A police officer instructs residents of the Paris suburb after the area ground to a standstill when shooting broke out
‘He was in the same Buttes Chaumount cell as the Kouachi brothers,’ said a source close to the investigation. ‘He was friends of both of them.’
Two of Coulibaly's relatives were arrested in nearby Grigny during a police raid this morning.
Like the Kouachi brothers, he is known to have been radicalised by an Islamic preacher in Paris, before expressing a wish to fight in Iraq or Syria.
Both Said Kouachi, 34, and his brother, Cherif Kouachi, 33 – who are currently surrounded in a building north of Paris – were first arrested in 2005
They were suspected members of the Buttes Chaumont – a group operating out of the 19th arrondissement of Paris and sending terrorist fighters to Iraq.
Cherif was convicted in 2008 to three years in prison, with 18 months suspended, for his association with the underground organisation.
He had wanted to fly to Iraq via Syria, and was found with a manual for a Kalashnikov – the automatic weapon used in Wednesday’s attack.
Dozens of police officers (pictured) have surrounded the kosher bakery, where a gunman has taken up to six hostage
Police cordons (pictured) have been established to surround the kosher bakery, where it's thought a woman and children are held captive
Three officers mobilize in the Port de Vincennes area after what is France's second hostage situation to break out today
A large shield and a pole used for breaking down doors are wheeled to the scene
Said was freed after questioning by police, but – like his brother – was known to have been radicalised after the Iraq War of 2003, when Anglo-American forces deposed Saddam Hussein.
Both brothers were said to be infuriated by the killing of Muslims by western soldiers and war planes.
Vincent Olliviers, Cherif’s lawyer at the time, described him as initially being an ‘apprentice loser - a delivery boy in a cap who smoked hashish and delivered pizzas to buy his drugs.
But Mr Ollivier said the ‘clueless kid who did not know what to do with his life met people who gave him the feeling of being important.’
After his short prison sentence, Cherif was in 2010 linked with a plot to free Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, the mastermind of the1995 bombing of the St Michel metro station in Paris that killed eight people and wounded more than 100 more.
Belkacem was a leading members of the GIA, or Armed Islamic Army – an Algerian terror outfit responsible for numerous atrocities.
The Kouachi brothers, who are orphans, were radicalised by an Iman operating in northern Paris.
They were raised in foster care in Rennes, in western France, with Cherif training as a fitness instructor before moving to Paris.
They lived in the 19th arrondissement and were radicalised by Farid Benyettou, a janitor-turned-preacher who gave sermons calling for jihad in Iraq and suicide bombings.
His Buttes-Chaumont recruitment group, named after a Paris park, sent at least a dozen young men to fight in Iraq.
The Kouachis share similar backgrounds to Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old French Algerian responsible for murdering seven people, including four Jews and three Muslim soldiers, in the Toulouse area in 2012.
Merah, who was himself shot dead by police, had also been left to operate as a terrorist in France, despite the authorities knowing he had trained with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Last year Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French Algerian, was arrested in Marseille in connection with an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels which left four people dead. He denies any crimes, and is currently on remand in Belgium.
A special forces team member lead residents out of the area (left) while two others patrol the cordon (right)
Pictured: French media identified this woman as Clarissa Jean-Philippe, the young policewoman who was gunned down as she attended a routine traffic accident in Montrouge at 8am yesterday. Coulibaly is thought to be responsible for her death