PARIS, January 9 -- At least one person was injured when a gunman opened fire at a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris on Friday and took at least five people hostage. The attacker was suspected of being the same gunman who killed a policewoman in a shooting in Montrouge in southern Paris on Thursday. A police source told AFP the suspect was linked to two brothers who massacred 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday. Sources close to the investigation said shooting had erupted at Porte de Vincennes in the east of Paris on Friday afternoon. "It is the Montrouge shooter," said one of the sources, adding at least one person was reported injured. A helicopter hovered above as police swarmed to the area, asking people to remain at home. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was on his way to the scene.
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PARIS, January 7 -- At least 12 people, including four cartoonists and two policemen, killed by three gunmen at Charlie Hebdo magazine. Three heavily armed men have attacked a French satirical magazine based in Paris, killing at least 12 people, including four cartoonists and two policemen, officials have said. The lawyer of the magazine confirmed that four cartoonists working with the publication, including the editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as 'Charb', were among the dead. Police said 11 people were wounded in the incident, adding that four were in a critical condition. The cartoonists known as Cabu, Tignous and Wolinski were also killed in the attack, AFP news agency quoted a judicial source as saying. Charlie Hebdo has drawn repeated threats for its caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, among other controversial sketches. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the assault was carried out by three attackers. According to witnesses, one was a driver and the other two were attackers in terms of their role in the incident, police said. In amateur camera footage shared on the internet, the attackers are heard shouting: "We have avenged the Prophet Mohammad." The gunmen fled eastwards towards the suburbs, dumping their car in a residential area, police said. They then hijacked two other cars, wounded their drivers and ran over a pedestrian. Reports from Paris, said journalists and cartoonists reported several masked men dressed in black entering the building who then began to fire with automatic weapons. "Some journalists took refuge on the roof," "Charlie Hebdo has pushed boundaries in the past, and continues to challenge the idea of censorship." President Francois Hollande, speaking outside the office of the magazine, described the attack as having been carried out by barbaric people. "This is an attack on free speech." he told reporters. "No one can harm the spirit of this country which is this newspaper". PARIS, September 23 -- An Algerian group has kidnapped and threatened to kill a Frenchman unless Paris halts air attacks in Iraq on fighters from its ally, the Islamic State. The Jund al-Khilafa group said in a video on Monday that it had abducted Herve Gourdel on Sunday in a mountainous Tizi Ouzu region in northern Algeria, where al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is active. Gourdel was shown squatting on the ground flanked by two hooded men with assault rifles, as he asks for the French president, Francois Hollande, to intervene. He said that he arrived in Algeria on September 20, and was abducted a day later. "I am in the hands of Jund al-Khilifa. This group is asking me to ask you [Hollande] to not intervene in Iraq. I ask you to do everything to get me out of this bad situation and I thank you." France launched its first air attacks on IS fighters last week, after joining a US-led coalition to "degrade and destroy" the threat posed by the group. The French foreign ministry and presidency acknowledged Gourdel had been abducted, and that the video was genuine. "We will do everything we can to liberate hostages," said France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius. "But a terrorist group cannot change France's position." Jund al-Khalifa, or "the soldiers of the caliph", are believed to have broken away from the local al-Qaeda affiliate and pledged alliegence to IS. The abduction was announced on the same day IS's spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, called on supporters to attack foreigners wherever they are. In a 43-minute video, Adnani said: "If you can kill a disbelieving American or European - especially the spiteful and filthy French - or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that joined a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon God, and kill him in any manner.'' An Algerian security official told the AP news agency that Gourdel, 55, was abducted along with two Algerian friends near Tikdjda, 110km from Algiers. The Frenchman's companions were released and they alerted authorities about the kidnapping, the security official said. Source: Agencies KABUL, September 16 -- A Taliban suicide bombing has killed at least six soldiers, including three members of the NATO force ISAF, and wounded more than 25 others near the US embassy in Kabul, according to police sources in Afghanistan's capital. The car bomber attacked a military convoy just a couple of hundred yards from the embassy compound at about 8am (0330 GMT) on Tuesday, causing a huge blast that rattled the neighbourhood, the police said. Faird Afzalai, chief of criminal investigations for Kabul's police, confirmed reports that the bomber targeted a foreign convoy. Three of the victims were Afghan soldiers. The blast happened near the country's Supreme Court on a busy road that runs from the heavily fortified US embassy to Kabul airport. In the aftermath of the explosion, which occurred during heavy rush-hour traffic, Afghan and foreign troops secured the area as fire and rescue vehicles moved in. At the side of the road, foreign troops gave first-aid to some blood-stained fellow soldiers from the convoy. About a half dozen cars stood damaged, and investigators inspected an empty black 4WD vehicle, its windows smashed and exterior pockmarked with shrapnel. One vehicle from the convoy was thrown off the road and destroyed by the blast. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in an emailed statement to journalists and via a recognised Twitter account. A Polish military spokesman later said one Polish soldier was killed and two others were wounded but were not in danger. Lieutenant-Colonel Piotr Walatek identified the dead soldier as Sergeant Rafal Celebudzki, who was driving one of the convoy's vehicles. Source: Agencies |
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