Police arrive with guns at Port de Vincennes on January 9 2015 in Paris
At least two people have been killed and several people taken hostage at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris on Friday after a shootout involving a man armed with two guns, according to official sources.
There were unconfirmed local media reports that the man was the same as the one suspected of killing a police officer in a southern suburb of Paris on Thursday.
A police source had told Reuters earlier he was a member of the same jihadist group as the two suspects in Wednesday’s attack at weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Authorities had initially said there was no link between that shooting and the attack on Charlie Hebdo, but the Le Point newspaper reported that the suspects in both cases had links with the same jihadist network.
The exact number of hostages was unclear. Local media spoke of at least five. The police source said the man was equipped with automatic weapons.
Police immediately cordoned off the area and a helicopter was flying overhead. Local media said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was rushing to the scene.
French police released mugshots of a man and woman wanted over the police officer’s killing.
They were named as Amedy Coulibaly (32) and Hayat Boumeddiene (26) and are considered “armed and dangerous”.
– Reuters, AFP, Staff reporter