France shaken, 20 dead in three stunning days of terror

PENCIL SHARP A giant pencil is held up at a vigil in London on Friday for the 12 victims of the attack on the Paris satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Similar acts of defiance against terror were held elsewhere in Europe and in the Arab world. AFP

PARIS—From the father who hid his toddler inside a supermarket refrigerator to the employee who texted tactical information to police from beneath a sink, authorities praised the quick instincts of survivors as the country mourned 17 dead in three blood-soaked days that shook the nation to its core.

The kind of violence that seemed unimaginable in the City of Light ended at dusk on Friday with near simultaneous raids in two locations: a printing plant in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris, where two brothers who staged a murderous rampage at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper were holed up, and the kosher supermarket in eastern Paris where an accomplice had seized hostages to help the brothers escape.

As scores of black-clad security forces surrounded both sites, booming explosions, heavy gunfire and dense smoke heralded the news that the twin sieges finally had ended.

The three gunmen were dead, but the authorities also discovered four dead hostages at the supermarket. Sixteen hostages were freed, one from the printing plant and 15 others from the store.

Police on Saturday were still frantically hunting for the girlfriend of the third gunman who is still at large and said to be “armed and dangerous.”

Texting info to police

At the printing business in Dammartin-en-Goele besieged by the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, one employee took refuge “under a sink in the canteen” upstairs, Paris prosecutor François Molins told reporters.

The employee, a 26-year-old graphic designer named Lilian, was “terrified.” But, overcoming his fear as he remained undetected, he began communicating with police outside via text message, sending them “tactical elements such as his location inside the premises,” a source said.

He could hear the suspects talking, which both helped reassure him and gave him more information to send to the forces poised outside, the source said.

The brothers, who had been on the run since they are believed to have slaughtered 12 people at the weekly magazine’s offices in Paris on Wednesday, had been cornered in the building after a firefight with police which Molins said left Said with a minor neck wound.

They had a hefty cache of arms including Molotov cocktails and a loaded rocket launcher.

The brothers had taken the store manager hostage, but later released him after he helped Said with his wound as the second man hid upstairs, said Molins.

Another source said the hidden employee was also able to communicate with a family member via text.

Some 40 kilometers away, shortly before 1 p.m., a father called Ilan and his 3-year-old son were at a Jewish supermarket in Vincennes when Amedy Coulibaly, believed to be an ally of the Kouachi brothers, burst into the store and pulled out a Kalashnikov.

The father and son quickly hid in the supermarket’s refrigeration unit, two relatives told AFP.

At least three other people were with them, according to sources close to the investigation.

Ilan, in his 30s, quickly removed his jacket and wrapped his son in it to protect the toddler from the frigid temperatures. Hidden in the cold, they and the other hostages remained in the refrigerator for nearly five hours.

Ilan’s mother realized quickly that her son and grandson were hidden and decided not to try to contact them, even by text.

Instead she gave Ilan’s mobile phone number to law enforcement, who were able to use it to track the location of the man, his son and the other hostages inside the store.

This knowledge, according to the prosecutor, may have contributed to their survival when police finally stormed the store and killed Coulibaly.

In Dammartin-en-Goele, as police launched their assault on the printing works, an armored car gave them access to the upper floor to free the hidden employee, a source said.

The employee, unharmed, was taken to police headquarters, where he was quickly reunited with his family, another source close to the case said, adding that the young man was “shocked” but “OK.” Ilan was debriefed by intelligence services late Friday and his mother was recovering after several hours of anguish.

Final battle

The fiery denouement came at the end of a day when the abrupt arrival of huge numbers of elite police both in the capital and in Dammartin-en-Goele made the likelihood of a final battle appear inevitable.

“It happened very, very quickly. We saw helicopters and suddenly, we saw CRS (elite police) all around us. We started to panic a bit,” said Stephane, 45, who works in a hazardous material business in Dammartin-en-Goele, as he described his frightening morning.

“They just gave us enough time to grab something warm to wear outside,” he said.

Police snipers set up on rooftops in the nondescript town and van after van of reinforcements were deployed. Masked and helmeted troopers with automatic weapons could be seen peering out of a blue police helicopter hovering overhead.

They didn’t have to wait long before going into action.

“We heard shooting, it all happened very fast. Police deployed very quickly,” said the manager at Hotel Ruisseau opposite the Jewish supermarket.

“It’s war!” shouted a mother as she pulled her daughter away.

Coordinated in Kouachis

As the sun set shortly after 5 p.m. local time, the two Islamist Charlie Hebdo gunmen charged out of the building with guns blazing before being cut down.

Coulibaly, the grocery store hostage taker had told French BFMTV by telephone that he had coordinated his action with the Koachi brothers.

In a telling final detail, revealed by BFMTV, the supermarket attacker did not hang up the phone properly, allowing the police to overhear him.

And it was as he knelt to do his evening prayer that they stormed the building.

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