Charlie Hebdo hunt (up-date): Police storm two hostage sites, terrorists killed

Cherif and Said Kouachi, the two brothers wanted in the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine, have been killed by security forces in a town where they’d been surrounded, a local mayor said, according to the CNN. About the same time late Friday afternoon, explosions could be heard around where people were being held hostage in a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris.

Some police were injured in the operation at the eastern Paris kosher grocery store, police union spokesman Pascal Disand said. At least 10 hostages escaped, and the hostage-taker – Amedy Coulibaly, 32, one of two people wanted in Thursday’s deadly shooting of a policewoman south of Paris – was killed, Disand said.

According to the BBC, French police have stormed two hostage sites in Paris and north of the city, with the hostage takers reported dead. Explosions were heard at a warehouse in Dammartin-en-Goele, where two suspects in the Charlie Hebdo magazine shootings had been holding one hostage. Explosions and gunfire could also be heard at a supermarket in eastern Paris, at Porte de Vincennes, where several hostages were held. Reports suggest a gunman there was linked to the Charlie Hebdo suspects.

After the operation started, several hostages could be seen leaving the supermarket. Police told French media that four hostages in the supermarket had been killed prior to security forces storming the site.Twelve people were shot dead and 11 were injured in Wednesday’s attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine. The unprecedented attack shocked France and there has been an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity worldwide.

The two suspects of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, had been on the run for two days, before being surrounded at the Dammartin warehouse on Friday.