Gunfire in French manhunt, hostage taken

Phillip Tutt | @phillt

<p>Paris shootings: Hostage situation at factory</p> <p>Discussing the ongoing "Charlie Hebdo" situation, CNBC's Stephane Pedrazzi reports that at least one person has been taken hostage and that shots have been fired in the area of Dammartin-en-Goele.</p>

At least one hostage has been taken and gunfire has been exchanged in a town north-east of Paris, where police are undertaking a manhunt of the suspects involved in the shooting of 12 people in Paris, the French interior minister confirmed Friday.
Security forces and helicopters were focusing their efforts on the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, a 12 kilometer (seven mile) drive from Charles De Gaulle Airport. Police cordoned off the small town, and French news channel France 24 reported that 1,000 officers were involved.
A spokesman for the French Interior Ministry told reporters that they were "almost certain" that the hostage-takers in Dammartin-en-Goele were the two suspects wanted for the shootings at the Paris magazine.
French President Francois Hollande said the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was the worst in France for 50 years. A meeting of interior ministers of European states
would be held on Sunday, he added.

Flights diverted

To stop the suspected killers from finding out where the search is being focused, the French police force has asked journalists via Facebook to stop filming in the area.
Hours earlier, the Associated Press reported quoting a security official, the brothers stole a Peugeot amid gunfire.
Aéroports de Paris confirmed Friday that that some flights heading into Charles De Gaulle Airport had been diverted.

Overnight, officers carried out house-to-house searches in the village of Corcy, a few miles from a service station where police sources said the brothers were sighted in ski masks. Corcy is around 50 km north of Dammartin-en-Goele.
The fugitive suspects are French-born sons of Algerian-born parents, both in their early 30s, and already under police surveillance. One was jailed for 18 months for trying to travel to Iraq a decade ago to fight as part of an Islamist cell. Police said they were "armed and dangerous".
U.S and European sources close to the investigation said on Thursday that one of the brothers, Said Kouachi, was in Yemen in 2011 for a number of months training with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the group's most active affiliates.
U.S. government sources said Said Kouachi and his brother Cherif Kouachi were listed in two U.S. security databases, a highly classified database containing information on 1.2 million possible counter-terrorism suspects, called TIDE, and the much smaller "no fly" list maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, an interagency unit.
Read MoreTerror shooting suspects spotted in east France: Reports

Pascal Le Segretain | Getty Images

A special forces police officer drives an armored vehicle on January 9, 2015 outside Longpont, France

In Paris, a policewoman was killed in a shootout with a gunman wearing a bulletproof vest on Thursday morning, setting a tense nation further on edge. Police sources were unable to say whether that incident was linked to the previous day's assault at the Charlie Hebdo weekly newspaper. On Friday, Le Figaro reported that the suspected killer had been identified and two arrests had been made.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama made an unannounced visit to the French Embassy in Washington to pay his respects.
He wrote in a condolence book, "As allies across the centuries, we stand united with our French brothers to ensure that justice is done and our way of life is defended. We go forward together knowing that terror is no match for freedom and ideals we stand for - ideals that light the world."