Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
In a fresh act of brutal terrorism, a heavily armed gunman has taken hostages inside a kosher grocery on the east side of Paris. Two people have reportedly been killed in connection with this new terrorist incident.
Officials suspect the man armed with AK-47s is the same person who shot and killed a Paris policewoman on Thursday.
Fox News is now reporting that as many as five hostages are believed held at gunpoint inside the Paris store.
Authorities believe the second hostage situation is related to Wednesday’s massacre and the ongoing standoff involving the suspects in Wednesday’s massacre at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
Meantime, the radical Islamist brothers suspected of slaughtering 12 people in the attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo are said to be holed up inside a printing plant northeast of Paris. Authorities say the Kouachi brothers are holding at least one hostage.
Hundreds of French security forces backed by a convoy of ambulances streamed into Dammartin-en-Goele, a small industrial town 25 miles outside the capital in a massive operation to seize the men suspected of carrying out France’s deadliest terror attack in 54 years. The suspects reportedly told police negotiators they were ready to “die as martyrs.”
Earlier reports said the two armed terrorists were heard to say they were affiliated with al Qaeda.
U.S. government sources confirmed that Said Kouachi had traveled to Yemen in 2011 and had direct contact with an Al Qaeda training camp. The other brother, Cherif, had been convicted in France of terrorism charges in 2008 for trying to join up with fighters battling in Iraq.
Hundreds of police and special forces have reportedly surrounded the business where the suspected Charlie Hebdo killers are hiding as this very tense, very fluid situation develops in a country shocked by the worst acts of terror in many decades.
BCN editor’s note: This article first appeared at Western Journalism.
