Kerry lays wreath at Paris kosher supermarket attacked by gunman

Kerry says visit to France is "to give a big hug" to Paris in light of recent spate of attacks.

By REUTERS
Kerry lays a wreath at the Jewish supermarket in Paris, site of last week's hostage taking
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday paid his respects at a kosher supermarket where an Islamist gunman took several hostages last week and was later killed by police.
Kerry laid a wreath together with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and both marked a moment's silence.
Earlier, Kerry met President Francois Hollande, giving him a hug in the courtyard of the Elysee presidential palace.
Kerry said his visit to France was "to give a big hug" to Paris. Senior US officials were absent from a commemoration march held in Paris on Sunday attended by dozens of world leaders. President Barack Obama's administration conceded that was an omission.
17 victims died in three days of violence that began on January 7 with an attack on the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and ended with a hostage-taking in a kosher supermarket. Police forces killed the three attackers during assaults.
Overnight, police arrested a dozen people suspected of helping the Islamist militant gunmen in last week's Paris killings, the city prosecutor's office said on Friday.
The arrests came after Belgian police killed two men during raids against an Islamist group on Thursday. In Germany, police said they had arrested two people following a raid on 11 properties linked to radical Salafists.
Investigators are still poring over the complex chain of events that led to three French nationals – two brothers with Algerian roots and a third of African extraction – perpetrating the worst attacks on French soil for decades.
Belgian investigators said they are trying to establish if a man detained in the city of Charleroi on suspicion of arms trafficking had any links with Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four Jews at the kosher supermarket in Paris last week.