Double hostage drama as 2 cornered in Paris

Elite French forces surrounded two brothers on Friday who are suspected of slaughtering 12 people during an Islamist massacre in Paris earlier this week.

They moved in as a fresh shooting and hostage drama erupted at a supermarket selling kosher products in an eastern area of the city.

The two surrounded men are believed to be the masked assailants who opened fire methodically on an editorial meeting at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, leaving 12 people dead in central Paris on Wednesday.

Snipers were deployed on roofs, and helicopters swooped low over a small printing business in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, only 12 km from Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport.

In the east of the city, a man already suspected of shooting dead a policewoman on Thursday was thought to be behind a new attack on a kosher grocery store, with at least two people killed and five hostages taken.

The Porte de Vincennes area in eastern Paris was locked down with people told to stay indoors and police streaming onto the streets.

Police sources said there was a "connection" between this gunman and the brothers accused of carrying out the massacre at Charlie Hebdo.

The huge manhunt for the brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, appeared to be approaching a dramatic climax as security forces laid siege to the CDT printing business in Dammartin-en-Goele.

Ahead of the standoff, police exchanged fire with the pair in a high-speed car chase.

Prosecutors said no casualties were reported in the immediate aftermath.

"They said they want to die as martyrs," Yves Albarello, a local lawmaker who said he was inside the command post, told French television station I-Tele.

One witness described coming face-to-face at the printer's with one of the suspects, dressed in black, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying what looked like a Kalashnikov rifle.

Schools near Dammartin-en-Goele were evacuated and residents barricaded themselves indoors as the hostage drama unfolded.

Before the standoff, the suspects had hijacked a Peugeot 206 from a woman who said she recognized them as the brothers accused of killing 12 people in Wednesday's attack on the weekly, which repeatedly lampooned the Prophet Muhammad.

Two Air France planes were forced to abort their landings at Charles-de-Gaulle airport and go around again due to the presence of helicopters flying over the area at low altitude, the airline said.

AFP - Reuters