Paris shooting suspects killed, along with hostage-taker and captives in Paris ‘anti-Semitic’ attack (LIVE BLOG)

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Watch the latest developments related to the shooting in France here:

Al Qaeda in Yemen claims responsibility for attack

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, on Friday said they were behind Wednesday's attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, several outlets are reporting.

A professed member (or members) of the group provided statements to the Associated Press and the Intercept claiming responsibility. From the Intercept's statement:

"Some ask the relationship between Al-Qaeda Organization and the (brothers) who carried out the #CharlieHebdo operation. Was it direct? Was the operation supervised by the Al-Qaeda wing in the Arabian Peninsula?

"The leadership of #AQAP directed the operation, and they have chosen their target carefully as a revenge for the honor of Prophet (pbuh)

"The target was in France in particular because of its obvious role in the war on Islam and oppressed nations."

The AP received identical language from their source:

"The leadership of AQAP directed the operations and they have chosen their target carefully as revenge for the honor of the prophet," the al-Qaida member said. He said France was targeted "because of its obvious role in the war on Islam and oppressed nations."

Western intelligence officials believe the slain suspects, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, had received training from Al Qaeda in Yemen — a country French intelligence has failed to monitor closely, instead focusing on threats in North Africa, Syria and Iraq, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The AP noted that if AQAP is confirmed to be behind the attack, it "would be the first time al-Qaida's branch in Yemen has successfully carried out an operation in the West after at least two earlier attempts."

4 hostages slain in Paris today

Update at 5:43 PM: The Paris prosecutor has said four hostages were killed at a kosher supermarket today. It was unclear earlier Friday whether the hostage-taker, Amedy Coulibaly, was included in that count. He was also killed.

In his address to the nation on Friday evening, President Hollande spoke of "four dead" in the incident.

Israel expresses concern over 'terror offensive' in France

AFP — Israel expressed concern Friday over a "terror offensive" in France, where a gunman stormed a Paris kosher supermarket after the Charlie Hebdo magazine massacre and the killing of a policewoman.

"Israel is following the situation in Paris with concern," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in statement.

"The terrorist offensive taking place over the past three days is not only against the French people or France's Jews but against the entire free world. …This is another attempt by the forces of darkness of extremist Islam to impose fear and terror on the west, and the entire international community must stand determinedly as a bulwark against this terror," said Lieberman.

Four people — an assailant and three hostages — were killed in Friday's standoff at the kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, in eastern Paris, official sources said.

Later in the day, French President Francois Hollande described the hostage-taking as "an appalling anti-Semitic act."

President Hollande confirms 4 killed in Paris 'anti-Semitic' attack

In an address to the nation on Friday evening, President Francois Hollande confirmed that four had been killed during a hostage situation at a kosher market in the east of Paris. France 24 television, along with several newswires, reported that three of the dead were hostages, while the fourth was Amedy Coulibaly, described in the post below.

The president described the hostage-taking as "an appalling anti-Semitic act."

The two suspected gunmen behind Wednesday's massacre at Charlie Hebdo in Paris were also killed Friday in a town north of the city.

Watch Hollande's full remarks delivered Friday (with voiceover in English):

Who is Amedy Coulibaly?

Le Figaro has published a profile of Amedy Coulibaly, 32, the man identified as the hostage taker in the kosher grocery. The French newspaper describes him as a “recidivist delinquent” who in 2013 was sentenced to five years in prison.

Here are some details from Le Figaro:

Coulibaly was also implicated in the killing of a policewoman earlier this week, identified by DNA in his hoody, which was left behind at the scene. He was killed when police raided the grocery today.

The police are convinced that the killing of the policewoman was not premeditated; rather, it emerged after Coulibaly was in a simple traffic accident.

Police are also tying him to an attack on a jogger in his neighborhood Wednesday night, apparently conducted with the same type of gun used in the killing of the policewoman and in the kosher grocery siege. “It may have been a shot fired to test his arm before returning to action,” Le Figaro speculates.

Le Figaro reports that Coulibaly was radicalized during previous stints in prison, and had disowned his parents for their “infidel” behavior. In December 2013, he was sentenced to five years in prison for plotting a major attack, which was to include a prison break for jihadist Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, serving a life term for the 1995 attack on the Orsay Museum metro station.

Cherif Kouachi, one of the suspected Charlie Hebdo assailants, was also investigated for helping in the plot, but the case against him was dropped. (He was apparently released last spring.)

He had six convictions on his record and had been found to have a psychopathic personality. Child porn was found in his apartment during a 2010 search, along with Quranic annotations.

—GlobalPost Senior Editor David Case

A rush to determine the status of hostages

The Associated Press reports that at least three hostages being held in an east Paris grocery store were killed today. The AP attributes the information to two police officials. About 10 other hostages were freed, CNN and Time reported.

French President François Hollande will address the nation less than an hour from now, at 8 p.m. local time.

UK's David Cameron will join Paris rally

According to AFP:

The "Republican march" is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people onto the Paris streets in a show of French national unity, upholding the principles of the state.

The British flag was flown at half-mast over Cameron's Downing Street office on Thursday.

Cameron said in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack that Western allies should defend their values of democracy and freedom of expression.

In a statement on Wednesday, he said: "What has happened in Paris is an appalling terrorist outrage and I know that everyone in Britain will want to stand with the French government and with the French people at this time.

"We must never allow the values that we hold dear, of democracy, of freedom of speech to be damaged by these terrorists.

"We must stand against what they have done and I feel huge sympathy for everyone in France, particularly for the families of those who have lost loved ones."

Britain's official terror threat was raised to "severe" in August — the second-highest of five levels — meaning that an attack is considered "highly likely".

Andrew Parker, head of Britain's MI5 domestic intelligence agency, said Thursday that Islamist militants in Syria were planning "mass casualty attacks" on Western targets, saying the attacks in Paris were only a reminder of an ongoing threat.

Witnesses describe the grocery raid

Europe 1 has interviewed witnesses who live near the east Paris kosher grocery that police raided. They describe counting “at least 40 police, armed and wearing body armor, entering the shop.” Three shots were fired. “The building nearly shook.”

Another witness reported hearing “very loud explosions.”

BFMTV posted video of the raid to YouTube.

Paris shooting suspects killed

The Kouachi brothers, the suspected assailants in Wednesday's mass shooting in Paris, are dead, a local mayor and other officials have told media outlets.

There are breaking news reports that some of the hostages taken at a grocery store in east Paris — a separate incident today allegedly carried out by Amedy Coulibaly, 32, and Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, also suspects in the murder of a police officer on Thursday — have been killed. It's also being reported that Coulibaly was killed, but that Boumeddiene remains at large. We will update this space as the news is confirmed.

Some hostages freed

Explosions reported in Dammartin

Sky News is reporting more explosions and gunshots heard in Dammartin-en-Goele, where two Charlie Hebdo shooting suspects are holed up with a hostage.

Details about suspected hostage takers

Reuters' Luke Baker has been a dedicated tweeter as the news unfolds. Here's one of his latest from today:

We still don't know the connection between this incident, the standoff in Dammartin-en-Goele and Wednesday's shooting at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo newspaper.

After a solemn night of mourning, a panicked morning manhunt in France

Reporting for GlobalPost, journalist Marie Doezema writes about the intense mourning that's simultaneously taking place in France as the manhunt continues.

PARIS, France — After a national day of mourning, it was a morning of high tension in France as the manhunt for two of the suspected gunmen in Wednesday’s attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo continued to escalate. Friday began with reports of gunfire exchanged between police and the suspects in a town northeast of Paris, another stolen car, and at least one hostage taken.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed that a police operation is ongoing about six miles northeast of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport. According to news reports from the scene, a hostage situation is underway in a small, family-run printing business in the commune of Dammartin-en-Goële. Witnesses there said it felt like a war zone.

Read more.

Watch live: NBC covers two standoffs in France

NBC News reports on the latest developments involving two intense standoff situations in France, including the manhunt for the Charlie Hebdo gunmen.

French police choppers are on the hunt

Shooting suspects take hostages in 2 separate locales

Reuters — French police have surrounded the two main suspects in the Charlie Hebdo killings at a light industrial building northeast of Paris. Police said they've been in touch with the shooters and that they have taken a hostage.

Meanwhile, in what police are calling a related attack, another gunman has taken at least five hostages at a kosher grocery story east of Paris. The man is already suspected of gunning down a policewoman on Thursday.

Five helicopters were seen flying over an industrial zone outside the town of Dammartin-en-Goele as snipers took up positions on rooftops near where the two Charlie Hebdo shooting suspects are believed to be hiding. Before night fell on Thursday, officers had been focusing on their search some 40 km (25 miles) away on the woodland village of Corcy, not far from a service station where police sources said the brothers had been sighted in ski masks a day after the shootings at the newspaper.

Read more.