French hostage crisis: Supermarket gunman told French TV he 'coordinated' with Charlie Hebdo killers

The gunman killed by police on Friday after taking hostages at a Jewish supermarket in Paris - Amedy Coulibaly (above) - told BFMTV station he had "coordinated" with the suspected Charlie Hebdo attackers and belonged to the Islamic State group.
The gunman killed by police on Friday after taking hostages at a Jewish supermarket in Paris - Amedy Coulibaly (above) - told BFMTV station he had "coordinated" with the suspected Charlie Hebdo attackers and belonged to the Islamic State group. -- PHOTO: AFP

PARIS (AFP) - The gunman killed by police on Friday after taking hostages at a Jewish supermarket in Paris told BFMTV station he had "coordinated" with the suspected Charlie Hebdo attackers and belonged to the Islamic State group.

The French channel managed to speak to Amedy Coulibaly, as well as to one of the two Kouachi brothers suspected behind Wednesday's magazine massacre, before all three were killed in police raids ending two hostage dramas.

Cherif Kouachi, the younger sibling, said that a trip he made to Yemen in 2011 was financed by American-Yemeni radical Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in Yemen by an American drone strike in September that year.

While holed up with a hostage at a print works in the tiny town of Dammartin-en-Goele north-east of Paris, Kouachi told BFMTV that they were on a mission from the Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda, AQAP.

Shortly after the Wednesday killing at Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead, the brothers hijacked a car telling the driver: "Say we are from Al Qaeda in Yemen."

The pair were killed when police stormed the building in Dammartin-en-Goele, freeing the hostage.

Meanwhile some 30km away in eastern Paris, Coulibaly, who took a number of hostages at a Jewish supermarket, contacted BFM to say he had "coordinated" his actions with the Kouachi brothers.

"They took Charlie Hebdo, me the police" he said.

Coulibaly was killed in a police raid to end the siege in Paris, during which four hostages were killed.

He was wanted for the killing Thursday of a young policewoman south of Paris.

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