PARIS--A timeline of the crisis in France following Islamist attacks that killed 17 and shook the country.
WEDNESDAY, January 7:
- Two men armed with Kalashnikov rifles storm the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly known for satirical caricatures of Islam and other religions, at around 11:30 am (1030 GMT).
- They kill a maintenance man before shooting eight cartoonists and journalists, a police officer protecting editor Charb, and a visitor.
- The attackers climb into a black Citroen and exchange fire with police vehicles, and then coldly execute an injured police officer sprawled on the pavement.
- Following a collision as they head north, they abandon their vehicle, hijack another, and flee from Paris, where police lose their trail.
- France raises its alert status for Paris and northern regions to the highest level of "attack alert".
- Police say they are hunting three men, including two brothers: Cherif and Said Kouachi, 32 and 34 respectively.
The third man suspected of helping the brothers turns himself in and is later released.
THURSDAY, January 8:
- A policewoman is shot by a man just outside Paris and dies. Authorities say the next day that there is a "connection" between the two shootings.
- The Charlie Hebdo suspects rob a petrol station in the northern Aisne region and the owner calls police.
- Investigators find a dozen Molotov cocktails and two jihadist flags in the getaway car.
- Thousands of security personnel are deployed.
- US officials say the Kouachi brothers were on a US no-fly list and that Said had spent a few months training with Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
FRIDAY, January 9:
- Shots are fired during a car chase on the N2 highway northeast of Paris later identified as the Kouachi brothers.
- The men hijack a car from a woman who says she recognised them as the Kouachi brothers.
- One man is taken hostage at a printing business in Dammartin-en-Goele village near Charles de Gaulle airport. Police backed by helicopters swarm the industrial park where it is located.
- Schools near the building are evacuated. The interior ministry says police are trying to "establish contact" with the massacre suspects.
- Another hostage-taking takes place at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris involving a man whom police suspect of the policewoman's murder on Thursday.
- The police release mugshots of the supermarket siege suspect, Amedy Coulibaly, 32, as well as a suspected accomplice, 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene.
- As night falls police commandos launch synchronized raids on the printworks in Dammartin-en-Goele and the supermarket in the eastern Paris neighbourhood of Porte de Vincennes. Explosions and gunfire rock both sites.
- The brothers in Dammartin-en-Goele are killed in the assault, with a source telling AFP they ran firing at policemen. Their hostage emerges unharmed.
- In the Jewish supermarket, four people and the hostage-taker are killed, and four are critically injured. Several captives are freed unharmed.
- In telephone calls earlier in the day and reported after the hostage crisis ended Cherif Kouachi tells BFMTV they had been financed by Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
- In a televised speech French President Francois Hollande says France "faced down" Islamists behind the attacks "but has not finished with the threats... I call for vigilance, unity and a mobilisation," he says.
- In a video, a top sharia official from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) threatens France with fresh attacks.
AFP
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells French Jews that Israel is their home.
