An armed man exchanging in gunfire with police has taken five hostages at a kosher deli in the Porte de Vincennes area of Paris, various media reported Friday morning.
Fox News and other news outlets initially reported two of the hostages had been killed, but officials have yet to confirm.
Agence France-Presse reported that a gunman has opened fire and taken at least one hostage. Fox News, meanwhile, said a total of five women and children were being held by the gunman.
The hostage situation comes as SWAT and military officials are still standing off with Charlie Hebdo newspaper terror suspects Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his older brother Said, 34, at a printing complex in Dammartin-en-Goele.
The new hostage situation at the deli is reportedly linked to the shooting death of the policewoman in Montrouge, 27-year-old Clarissa Jean-Philippe, who was killed while investigating a traffic accident Thursday.
Her killer, wearing body armor and carrying an automatic assault rifle, was later identified by police as a member of the Buttes Chaumount network that sent along jihadi terrorists to Iraq, the Daily Mail reported.
“He was in the same Buttes Chaumount cell as the Kouachi brothers,” said one source close to the investigation, the Daily Mail reported. “He was friends of both of them.”
And now he’s believed to be the same gunman who’s holding a hostage at the kosher deli — and he’s been definitively linked to the Kouachi brother suspects who are standing off with police in Dammartin-en-Goele, Fox News reported.
Both situations are fluid and continue to unfold.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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