By Cassandra Vinograd, Nancy Ing, Alastair Jamieson and Ed Kiernan
In twin hostage standoffs, the brothers suspected in the Charlie Hebdo terror attack were cornered Friday at a printing plant outside Paris, and a kosher supermarket in the capital was seized by an armed man.
Explosions could be heard and smoke could be seen rising from the printing plant about seven hours after that siege began, but the nature of the activity was not clear.
Security forces and hostage negotiators swarmed to both scenes in what appeared to be the delicate and highly dangerous conclusion to the spasm of terror that has gripped France for more than two days.
A prosecutor’s spokeswoman said that the hostage-taker at the kosher market was “most likely” Amedy Coulibaly, 32, wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of a woman police officer in Paris on Thursday.
The Associated Press, citing an unnamed police official, reported that the gunman was holding at least five people inside the market and had threatened to kill them if police stormed the printing plant, about 25 miles away.
There, in the countryside town of Dammartin-en-Goele, police surrounded Cherif and Said Kouachi, who are suspected of gunning down 12 people at the satirical magazine on Wednesday in the worst terror attack in France in decades.
The AP report could not immediately be confirmed by NBC News.
The brothers were believed to have at least one hostage inside a family-run printing company. Mayor Bernard Torneille said there could be more. Five to seven people are there during business hours, he said.
The suspects were spotted by police driving in the town about 9:30 a.m. local time, or 3:30 a.m. ET. Authorities said that shots had been fired. Helicopters hovered overhead, and hundreds of police and special forces circled