A French TV Channel has released dramatic footage its cameramen shot during the last moments of the Kosher Market standoff in Paris. According to CNN , the video was shot by the crew of France 2, one of their affiliate news networks in the country.
At the end of the video, the gunman who had taken over the building is seen running towards the French special operations team, at which point he was immediately shot dead. Seconds later, several people, presumably hostages who were held against their will for hours, are seen rushing out to their freedom.
The gunman who had taken over the kosher market was earlier identified as Amedy Coulibaly. His 26-year-old girlfriend, Hayet Boumddiene, is also a suspect. It is unclear at this stage if she was inside the Kosher market when it was taken over by Amedy. Police officials say that she is still on the loose and remains a threat.
Earlier in the day, Amedy had taken over the Kosher market in the jewish dominated Porte de Vincennes area of Paris. He seems to have purposely timed the attack to ensure that it coincided with the Jewish Sabbath, due a few hours later. According to Yahoo News , Coulibaly opened fire indiscriminately when he entered the market and announced “You know who I am.” Officials say that most of the casualties reported from the Kosher market happened when Amedy stormed the building. In the video you can see the body of a man lying motionless even before the operation had begun, implying that several hostages were already dead even before the rescue operation began.
Officials also suspect that Coulibaly was in constant touch with the brothers at another location where the duo had taken refuge inside a paper mill in the outskirts of Paris. In fact, a few minutes before the special forces stormed the Kosher market, Coulibaly had in a phone call to the authorities threatened to start killing his hostages if the two brothers holed up at the other location were harmed. According to BFM Tv, after talking to officials, Coulibaly apparently forgot to hang up his phone which enabled officials to gauge as to what was happening inside the store. According to them, the special operations team stormed in seconds after Amedy started saying a final prayer before his death.
Amedy Coulibaly is also believed to be the same gunman who had shot dead a woman police officer just a day ago. At the time of publishing this article, the French security forces had managed to neutralize both sets of terrorists. Officials have confirmed that a total of four hostages were killed in the incident.
[Image Via LiveLeak]