Five dead, including gunman, in Paris supermarket hostage drama: security source

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

A security officer directs released hostages after they stormed a kosher market to end a hostage situation, Paris, Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. AP Photo

Several hostages were freed after French commandos stormed a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris where an assailant was holed up on Friday.
      
After several explosions, police stormed the shop in Portes de Vincennes and several hostages exited the store shortly afterwards and were taken to safety.

Five people were killed, including the gunman, sources said.

French officials suspect a man responsible for the murder of a policewoman in the street of a southern Paris suburb on Thursday could be the hostage-taker.

French police released mugshots of a man and woman wanted over the killing of a policewoman, who are now thought to be holed up with hostages in an east Paris kosher grocery.
      
They were named as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, and Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, and are considered "armed and dangerous".

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.
  



Meanwhile, French police said there was a link between a suspect identified in the fatal shooting of a policewoman south of Paris and the brothers wanted for a massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine.
      
"The recent and latest progress in the investigation has established a connection between the two shootings," a police source told AFP, calling for caution as they carried out their probe.
      
While France was reeling from the massacre of 12 people at the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine a day earlier by masked gunmen, a man in a bullet-proof vest carrying a handgun and automatic rifle on Thursday shot dead a policewoman and seriously hurt a city employee in Montrouge.
      
The victims had been called to the scene of a car accident.
      
Prosecutors initially said they had not yet linked the two incidents, but handed the probe to anti-terrorist investigators.
     
Police announced Friday they had identified the gunman in the Montrouge shooting.
      
"The suspect has been identified. Two people very close to him have been taken into custody," a police source said.