At the same time, security forces stormed a market in Paris to end a hostage situation there.
The two scenes were linked by the fact that three of the four suspects were thought to be part of the same jihadist group, said Pascal Disant of the Alliance Police Union.
Also, the suspects in the second hostage scene demanded the freedom of the suspects in the first, Disant said.
That didn’t work.
The suspects in the magazine slayings were killed Friday near Dammartin-en-Goele in an operation by security forces, the mayor of Othis, Bernard Corneille, told CNN.
The hostage standoff in Paris ended at almost the same time when police moved in, killing one of the suspects, with another apparently escaping.
First hostage scene
The two men killed northeast of Paris were the Kouachi brothers, alleged to have been the gunmen in the deadly terrorist attack on the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, were French citizens known to the country’s security services, according to officials. One spent time in jail for ties to terrorism, and was in Syria as recently as this summer, according to a French source. The other went to Yemen for training, officials say.
A French source close to the French security services told CNN that investigators are looking at evidence that suggests Cherif Kouachi traveled to Syria and returned to France in August 2014.
Investigators don’t know how long he was there, according to the source, who had no information about whether Said Kouachi had also traveled to Syria, as USA Today reported.
But a U.S. official said the United States had information from the French intelligence agency indicating Said Kouachi had traveled to Yemen as late as 2011 on behalf of the al Qaeda affiliate there. A French official also told CNN Said Kouachi had been in Yemen.
French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that one of the brothers had been in Yemen in 2005, but did not say which one.
Both were in the U.S. database of known or suspected international terrorists, known as TIDE, and also had been on the no-fly list for years, a U.S. law enforcement official said.
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The Libération report suggested that at the time of Cherif Kouachi’s arrest in 2005, the brothers were staying in Paris with a Frenchman who had converted to Islam.
Said Kouachi was taken into custody and questioned during that investigation but was later released, Le Figaro reported.
His name also came to the attention of police during the investigation of the 2010 prison break plot, but there wasn’t enough evidence to keep investigating him, Le Monde reported.
AMEDY COULIBALY
Before he was killed, Amedy Coulibaly purportedly told CNN affiliate BFMTV that he belonged to ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the terror group trying to create a fundamentalist religious state across Sunni area in those two countries.
CNN has not independently confirmed the authenticity of the French broadcaster’s recording with Coulibaly.
Coulibaly, 32, was a close associate of Cherif Kouachi, a Western intelligence source told CNN. Coulibaly went by the alias Doly Gringny, the source said.
Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi were involved in the 2010 attempt to free an Algerian serving time for the 1995 subway bombing.
Coulibaly was arrested May 18, 2010, with 240 rounds of ammunition for a Kalishnikov, the source said.
He had a photo of himself with Djamel Beghal, a French Algerian once known as al Qaeda’s premiere European recruiter, who was convicted of conspiring to attack the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
Coulibaly was indicted May 22, 2010, in connection with the prison break plot.
Cherif Kouachi was under investigation for the same plot, but there was not enough evidence to indict him, the source said.
Cherif Kouachi visited Coulibaly during a pre-trial detention. The prison break plot was known as the BELKACEM Project, the source said.
Coulibaly shared a residence with Boumeddiene, and they traveled to Malaysia together, the source said.
CNN’s Barbara Starr, Nick Paton Walsh, Evan Perez, Lonzo Cook and Deborah Feyerick contributed to this report.
