Ahead of the stand-off, police had already exchanged fire with the suspect brothers
PARIS: Ahead of the stand-off, police had already exchanged fire with the pair -- orphans of Algerian origin -- in a high-speed car chase. One witness described coming face-to-face at the printer's with one of the suspects, dressed in black, wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying what looked like a Kalashnikov.
The salesman told France Info radio that one of the brothers said: "'Leave, we don't kill civilians anyhow'." Schools in the area were evacuated and residents barricaded themselves indoors as the standoff with police unfolded.
One 60-year-old choked back tears as she said how elite forces burst into the shop where her daughter works and ordered them to take cover. "My daughter told me: 'Don't be scared mummy, we're well protected. She was calm but me, I'm scared. I'm really scared," said the woman.
Prior to the standoff, the suspects had hijacked a car from a woman who said she recognised the brothers. The spectacular attacks came as it emerged the brothers had been on a US terror watch list "for years".
And as fears spread in the wake of the attack, the head of Britain's domestic spy agency MI5 warned that Islamist militants were planning other "mass casualty attacks against the West" and that intelligence services may be powerless to stop them.
Wednesday's bloodbath at Charlie Hebdo, which had repeatedly lampooned the Prophet Mohammed, has sparked a global chorus of outrage, with impromptu and poignant rallies around the world in support of press freedom under the banner "jesuischarlie" (I am Charlie).
US President Barack Obama was the latest to sign a book of condolence in Washington with the message "Vive la France!" as thousands gathered in Paris on a day of national mourning yesterday, and the Eiffel Tower dimmed its lights to honour the dead.
And as a politically divided and crisis-hit France sought to pull together in the wake of the tragedy, the head of the country's Muslim community -- the largest in Europe – urged imams to condemn terrorism at Friday prayers.
In a highly unusual step, President Francois Hollande met far-right leader Marine Le Pen at the Elysee Palace later today, as France geared up for a "Republican march" on Sunday expected to draw hundreds of thousands.
Interior Minsiter Bernard Cazeneuve announced that a total of 88,000 security forces were mobilised across the country and that an international meeting on terrorism would take place in Paris on Sunday.
Nine people had already been detained as part of the operation, Cazeneuve said.
