French police officers patrol the area where two terror suspects held one person hostage as police cornered the gunmen, on Jan. 9, 2015. (AFP)

Afrasianet - The two brothers suspected of being involved in the massacre on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo have both been killed, according to a unnamed source and a police official.

Reports also emerged that the hostage taken by the suspects was unharmed and has been freed.

The news comes as French commandos launched an assault and explosions were heard from inside a printing house northeast of Paris where the suspects were holed up with a hostage on Friday.

The two suspects - suspected behind the deadly killing of 12 people at French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday - earlier told police that they “want to die as martyrs.”

Audrey Taupenas, spokeswoman for Dammartin-en-Goele where the suspects are cornered, said officials established phone contact with the suspects in order to negotiate the safe evacuation of a school nearby, the Associated Press reported. She said the suspects agreed and the school was evacuated.

Yves Albarello, a lawmaker who said he was inside the command post, said the two brothers told i-Tele on Friday they "want to die as martyrs."

Interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told BFMTV: "The priority is to resolve this crisis in the smoothest way possible that is without violence. The priority is to establish contact.”

The men are believed to be the masked assailants who methodically opened fire on an editorial meeting of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, leaving 12 people dead in central Paris on Wednesday.

As at least three helicopters hovered, Charles de Gaulle closed two runways to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff, an airport spokesman said. The town appealed to residents to stay inside.

The siege in Dammartin-en-Goele unfolded after the suspects hijacked a car early Friday in a nearby town.

Tens of thousands of French security forces have mobilized to prevent a new terror attack since the Wednesday assault on Charlie Hebdo, which decimated the editorial staff, including the chief editor who had been under armed guard after receiving death threats for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. He and his police bodyguard were the first to die, witnesses have said.

Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi were named as the chief suspects after Said's identity card was left behind in their abandoned getaway car.

[With AP]