The cops have established contact with the attackers and it seems the attackers have told the cops that they want to die as martyrs.
Charlie Hebdo killers seize hostage, exchange gunfire with cops - Rediff.com India News
Dozens of armed police have surrounded the Charlie Hebdo killers after they seized a hostage and are now holed up on an industrial estate near a Paris airport. ts
At least two people are thought to have been killed and several wounded before Cherif and Said Kouachi entered business premises in the village of Dammartin-en-Goele, north-east of the capital.
However, the public prosecutor has deny reports there had been casualties.
The gunmen are believed to have taken one hostage with them into a storage unit, which is now surrounded by police commandos who have begun negotiations to try to secure their release.
As helicopters hovered overhead, France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said: “A police operation is underway.”
The brothers were holed up in a small printing business named Creating Trend Discovery, a source close to the investigation said. “It’s not sure how many people are inside,” the source said.
** A French Army helicopter with intervention forces hovers near the scene of a hostage taking at an industrial zone in Dammartin-en-Goele after the gunmen took a hostage. Photograph: Christian Hartmann /Reuters**
Prior to the standoff, the suspects had hijacked a Peugeot 206 in Montagny-Sainte-Felicite from a woman who said she recognised them as the wanted men, a police source said.
The standoff was close to the same area where special police forces had been combing the countryside for the brothers.
Police officers stop a car at a check point outside Longpont, France as cops continue their massive manhunt for the two suspected gunmen in Wednesday’s deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine office. Photograph:Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
Dozens of police had earlier pursued the brothers along the National 2 highway, ending Dammartin-en-Goele, around 7 miles from Charles de Gaulle international airport.
The dramatic development came after thousands of police and soldiers had focused their hunt for the gunmen in a nearby forest amid fears they were planning a final ‘spectacular’ before capture.
The search for the gunmen last night focused on a cave in a vast forest in northern France, but had turned up nothing.
The pair left behind their identity cards in the Citroen they used for the massacre – a move which appeared deliberate, intelligence specialists said.
