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In a kosher grocery store in Paris, terror takes a deadly toll In a kosher grocery store in Paris, terror takes a deadly toll
(about 3 hours later)
PARIS — For five hours, Noemi shivered through the biting chill and the abject terror of being hidden away inside the refrigerated cellar of a kosher grocery store as a murderous gunman rampaged above. PARIS – For more than four hours, Noemi shivered through the biting chill and the abject terror of being hidden away inside the refrigerated cellar of a kosher grocery store as a murderous gunman rampaged above.
The cold-storage room had been her salvation when she dashed inside earlier Friday afternoon, escaping the bullets that felled others in her midst. But as night fell, she huddled with her fellow hostages and worried it would become her death chamber.The cold-storage room had been her salvation when she dashed inside earlier Friday afternoon, escaping the bullets that felled others in her midst. But as night fell, she huddled with her fellow hostages and worried it would become her death chamber.
“We’re very afraid, and we’re very cold,” Noemi told a friend, Anthony Raveaux, in a phone call just after 5 p.m. “Tell the police to hurry.” “We’re very afraid, and we’re very cold,” Noemi told a friend, 29-year-old Anthony Ravaux, in a phone call just after 5 p.m. “Tell the police to hurry.”
Minutes later, right at sundown, dozens of heavily armed officers stormed the store in a furious assault of smoke, sound and fire. The hostages made a desperate run for the doors as officers shot the gunmen dead, ending the standoff. Minutes later, right at sundown, dozens of heavily armed officers stormed the store in a furious assault of smoke, sound and fire. The hostages made a desperate run for the doors as officers shot the gunman dead, ending the standoff.
But the siege of the Hyper Cacher market in eastern Paris’s Porte de Vincennes neighborhood had already taken a terrible toll, with four hostages dead and France’s half-million strong Jewish community feeling newly vulnerable to the scourge of radical Islamist violence. But the siege of the Hyper Cacher market in eastern Paris’s Porte de Vincennes neighborhood had already taken a terrible toll, with four hostages dead and France’s half-million-strong Jewish community feeling newly vulnerable to the scourge of radical Islamist violence.
In three days that traumatized a nation, three men with deep histories of association with terrorist organizations carried out three deadly attacks: the first against a newspaper, the second against a police officer and the third against a kosher grocery store. In three days that traumatized a nation, three men with deep histories of association with terrorist organizations carried out three deadly attacks: The first against a newspaper, the second against a police officer and the third against a kosher grocery store.
The last, said President Francois Hollande in an address to the nation Friday evening, was unquestionably “an anti-Semitic attack.” The last, said President François Hollande in an address to the nation Friday evening, was unquestionably “an anti-Semitic attack.”
In Porte de Vincennes, a stately neighborhood with a heavy mix of Jews and Muslims, there was no doubt. In Porte de Vincennes — a stately neighborhood of low-slung 19th-century buildings that is home to a heavy mix of both Jews and Muslims, many of whom share North African heritage — there was no doubt.
“They were only targeted because they were Jewish,” a woman who works at the store said of her colleagues. “They’re just normal people trying to do their jobs.” The hostage-taking began just after noon, when Amedy Coulibaly, 32, a French citizen of Senegalese descent, walked into the store and began to shoot. The attack played out hours before the start of the Jewish Sabbath on Friday night, a particularly busy time for a kosher shop.
The gunman who seized the kosher store, identified by police as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, a French citizen of Senegalese descent, threatened to kill hostages if police stormed a commercial building in Dammartin-en-Goele, about 25 miles northeast of Paris, where the armed brothers suspected in the newspaper massacre were holed up with at least one hostage. As police quickly established a cordon around the building, residents on the outside were left to wonder what had become of friends and colleagues trapped within.
Shortly afterward, police assaulted the hideout of brothers Said and Chérif Kouachi, 34 and 32, and loud explosions were heard from the scene of the grocery store seizure. Two women who worked at the store but were off at the time of the attack, sobbed as they frantically dialed the phone numbers of friends. One said she had received a call from a colleague who could only get out the words “people are shooting” before the line was cut.
The raid on the store came right at sundown, starting with three loud explosions. A short pause was followed by 30 seconds of sustained explosions and gunfire. Amid the blasts, police manning a cordon several blocks away ordered bystanders to move farther back from the site, and parents shepherded screaming children into the shelter of nearby doorways. “They were only targeted because they were Jewish,” the woman, who declined to give her name, said of her colleagues. “They’re just normal people trying to do their jobs.”
More than an hour after the raid, Ravaux said he believed that his friend had survived, citing media reports that the hostages hiding in cold storage had all escaped. But he could not reach her by phone. Malik Zadi, a 25-year-old Muslim of Algerian heritage, agreed that the attack was aimed at Jews but noted that his fellow Muslims were likely to be hostages, as well.
“It’s a kosher store, but not only Jews go there. I go there,” Zadi said. “In this neighborhood, there are Muslims, Jews, Christians. It’s like Paris. It’s a melting pot. Cohabitation.”
This week, that cohabitation is being challenged like never before, with attacks that have torn at the very foundations of French society.
The assault has come from three men who were all nurtured in that society but who became alienated enough to want to tear it down.
Amid the standoff at Hyper Cacher, Coulibaly told a French television station that he had shot dead a Paris policewoman on Thursday and that he was working in concert with Said and Chérif Kouachi, the brothers implicated in Wednesday’s attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
“We coordinated from the beginning, when they started with Charlie Hebdo and I started with the police,” Coulibaly told the station, BFM TV.
As he spoke, the Kouachi brothers were orchestrating their own high-stakes drama 25 miles away at a mom-and-pop printing business in the village of Dammartin-en-Goele.
But unlike the brothers, who had taken a single hostage when they commandeered the commercial building Friday morning — and later let him go — Coulibaly had an entire grocery store full of terrified employees and customers.
There were 16 hostages, including children, Coulibaly told the station. He boasted that he had already killed four people, and police said he was threatening to shoot more if they staged a raid against his accomplices in Dammartin.
In fact, Coulibaly had significantly more hostages than he knew: the ones who had dashed into the cold-storage room had apparently escaped his detection.
But Noemi and the others huddled inside had no way of knowing that. They felt a jolt of apprehension with every sound from above, and they scoured the storage-room floor for empty boxes and other possible places to hide.
“Don’t panic,” Ravaux told Noemi, whose last name he did not want to reveal, when she reached him by phone. “The police will do their best.”
Ravaux, who himself had walked out of the store five minutes before Coulibaly burst in, told her to conserve her phone’s battery, and the two hung up.
Within minutes, the streets echoed with three loud booms as police tossed stun grenades and began their assault. After a pause, the earth shook with 30 seconds of sustained gunfire. Blocks away, parents shepherded screaming children into the shelter of nearby doorways.
And then, silence.
More than an hour after the raid, Ravaux said he believed that his friend had survived. But he could not reach her by phone.
“I hope she’s with the police,” he said.“I hope she’s with the police,” he said.
Police said Coulibaly had links to the Kouachi brothers. They also blamed Coulibaly for the murder Thursday of a French policewoman, Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27, who was gunned down during an unrelated traffic stop on a Paris street. Officials said that the Paris raid and a nearly simultaneous shootout with the Kouachi brothers in Dammartin left all three assailants dead, allowing the surviving hostages to go free. In his speech to the nation, Hollande praised law enforcement officers for their work and said France would not be divided by racism or anti-Semitism.
Authorities released photos of the Coulibaly and an alleged female accomplice, who remains at large. But on the streets of Porte de Vincennes, residents expressed a gnawing fear that the events of the past three days had unleashed a wave of violence with no end.
Earlier, investigators identified connections between the slaying of the policewoman and Wednesday’s rampage a satirical newspaper in Paris that left a dozen people dead. “This is only the beginning for what’s awaiting France,” said Sam Cohen, a 22-year-old who wore a black hoodie atop his black kippah. “Everyone’s going to grab a weapon, and there will be more and more dead every day.”
“I have learned with horror of a hostage-taking that has started at Porte de Vincennes and am going there immediately,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on Twitter. Michael Birnbaum and Cléophée Demoustier contributed to this report.
Hayat Boumeddiene, a 26-year-old woman, and Coulibaly were “suspected to be armed and dangerous,” French police said before the raids on the two locations. They said the pair were being sought in connection with the Thursday killing of the female police officer in Paris. The police said they believe the killing was a “terrorist enterprise.”
The hostage-taking at the grocery store — called Hyper Cacher, or Hyper Kosher — took place hours before the Jewish Sabbath started on Friday night, a particularly busy time for a kosher shop.
Police believe that Coulibaly was the sole hostage-taker at the store, said Christophe Tirante, a senior police official. Coulibaly demanded that the Kouachi brothers, the Paris-born sons of Algerian parents, be allowed to go free, Tirante said before the police assault on the store.
Tirante said that police believe that the attackers all know each other, possibly from time in prison in 2005.
Boumeddiene, who is also wanted in connection with Thursday’s killing of the policewoman, “has disappeared,” Tirante said, and Coulibaly was alone at the grocery store. French media identified Boumeddiene as Coulibaly’s wife or girlfriend.
Like the two suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack, Coulibaly appears to have been well-known to French authorities for years before Thursday’s killing of the policewoman on a quiet Paris street.
Starting in 2001, Coulibaly was repeatedly held for crimes ranging from theft to drug trafficking, according to French media reports. In 2013, he was convicted of involvement in an attempt to help another militant Islamist, Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, escape from prison, Paris newspapers reported. Coulibaly was later released.
Coulibaly was born in 1982 in the Paris suburb of Juvisy-sur-Orge as the only son in a family of 10 children, according to police reports cited by French news media. He spent time in and out of prison starting in 2001, when he was convicted of robbery. French police believe he converted to radical Islam while in prison for armed robbery in 2005, the same time he met Cherif Kouachi in prison. The two men became devoted followers of Djamel Beghal, a French-Algerian man with ties to al-Qaeda who was convicted of plotting in 2001 to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
When Coulibaly was freed in 2006, he took up work at a Coca-Cola factory outside Paris. French security services apparently deemed him safe enough to meet France’s then-president, Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2009, when Coulibaly was involved in an effort to promote youth employment.
“I’ll enjoy it,” Coulibaly told Le Parisien newspaper in July 2009, the day before he was scheduled to meet with Sarkozy. “In truth, in the cities, with youth, Sarkozy isn’t very popular,” he added. “But it’s nothing personal. In fact, that’s the case with the majority of politicians.”
Coulibaly was apparently still engaged in quiet militant activity. Just 10 months after his meeting with Sarkozy, police searched his apartment and found 240 rounds of 7.62mm rifle ammunition — often used in Kalashnikov assault rifles. He told police at the time that he planned to sell the ammunition on the street, not to use it to shoot anyone. Police also found photos of him visiting Beghal.
Before the police assault in Porte de Vincennes, Jewish and Muslim residents of the low-slung, middle-class neighborhood stood anxiously together behind police lines blocks from the grocery store, awaiting news.
“It’s a kosher store, but not only Jews go there. I go there,” said Malik Zadi, a 25-year-old Muslim of Algerian heritage. “In this neighborhood, there are Muslims, Jews, Christians. It’s like Paris. It’s a melting pot. Cohabitation.”
Sam Cohen, a 22-year-old Jewish resident who is also of Algerian heritage, said members of the community get along well together — regardless of faith.
But he said he worried that the attacks of the past three days have unleashed a wave of violence with no end.
“This is only the beginning for what’s awaiting France,” said Cohen, who wore a black hoodie and a black kippah. “Everyone’s going to grab a weapon, and there will be more and more dead every day.”
William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.
Our full coverage of France shooting:Our full coverage of France shooting:
- Live blog: Latest updates from two standoffs- Live blog: Latest updates from two standoffs
- Police surround Charlie Hebdo shooting suspects- Police surround Charlie Hebdo shooting suspects
- Shooting suspects tried to meet with al-Qaeda- Shooting suspects tried to meet with al-Qaeda
- Map: Tracking the manhunt for the shooters- Map: Tracking the manhunt for the shooters