Live: Gunman in Paris arrested after he surrendered, two hostages freed, says police

10.24 pm: Gunman was mentally unstable  According to TV reports, the gunman who had taken two hostages at a post office in Colombes, a city in northwestern Paris, was mentally unstable over a failed relationship. According to French media there was no terror link to the attack. The gunman is known to police as a petty crime suspect, police told AFP. The hostage-taker “is disappointed in love”, local prefecture told Liberation newspaper, adding that the hostage taker is a customer “who lost his head” and speaks of “heartbreak.” Sources told AFP that the man was “speaking incoherently”. Although, where did the gunman get a Kalashnikov rifle is still unknown. 7.16 pm: Paris post office gunman arrested, hostages freed: police French police, in the latest development, told AFP that Paris gunman has been apprehended. The hostages have been freed. The gunman earlier had taken two hostages at a post office in suburban Paris. Quoting the police, AFP said that the hostage-taker in suburban Paris’ post office surrendered on Friday. 6.38: Gunman armed with Kalashnikov rifle According to latest reports, the gunman is armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and he has not stated his demands yet. The unknown assailant has taken at least two people hostage in Colombes, a city northwest of Paris. Reports said the attack is not an act of terrorism. Police cordoned off the area in Colombes, a city northwest of Paris, and a helicopter was flying overhead. French and German authorities arrested more than a dozen people on Friday with suspected links to the Islamic State group and a Paris train station was evacuated, with Europe on alert for new potential terrorist attacks, news agencies reported. The arrests came a day after Belgian police killed two gunmen recently returned from Syria during one of several raids across the country in a vast sweep against an Islamist network suspected of planning imminent strikes. 6.30 pm: Gunman takes two hostages in Colombes Post Office An armed man was holed up in a post office outside Paris on Friday with two hostages, police said, though there is no known link with last week’s jihadist attacks. Police cordoned off the area in Colombes, a city northwest of Paris, and a helicopter was flying overhead, AFP reported. TV reports although said that it cannot be said with a certainty whether the latest hostage situation is linked to a terror act. Earlier in the day, Paris police evacuated the Gare de l’Est train station on Friday after a bomb threat, as authorities across Europe pressed on with efforts to prevent new violence after the worst terrorist attacks in decades. [caption id=“attachment_2050569” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  People attend the funeral ceremony of Stephane Charbonnier also known as Charb. AP[/caption] The Paris prosecutor’s office, meanwhile, said 10 people were arrested in anti-terrorism raids in the region, targeting people linked to a gunman who attacked a kosher supermarket and claimed ties to the Islamic State. The developments, coming on the day that US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived to “share a big hug with Paris,” came a day after Belgian police killed two suspected terrorists in a firefight and arrested a third man, an Associated Press report said. A French police official said the Gare de l’Est station was closed “as a precaution.” The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named, would not give further details. The station, one of several main stations in Paris, serving cities in eastern Paris and countries to the east. In Berlin, police arrested two men Friday morning on suspicion of recruiting fighters for the so-called Islamic State group in Syria. The Belgian raid on a former bakery was another palpable sign that terror had seeped deep into Europe’s heartland as security forces struck against militants some of who may be returnees from Islamic holy war in Syria. Federal magistrate Eric Van der Sypt said returnees were an important part of the targeted searches. After the gun smoke lifted, police continued with searches in Verviers and the greater Brussels area, seeking more clues in a weeks-long investigation that started well before the terrorism spree last week that led to 17 deaths in the Paris area. The Belgian operations had no apparent link to the terrorist acts committed in France. France is on edge since last week’s attacks, which began at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The paper, repeatedly threatened for its caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, buried several of its slain staff members Thursday even as it reprinted another weekly issue with Muhammad on its cover. Defense officials said France came under an unprecedented cyber assault with 19,000 cyber-attacks launched after the country’s bloodiest terrorist attacks in decades, frustrating authorities as they try to thwart repeat violence. The attacks, mostly relatively minor denial-of-service attacks, hit sites as varied as military regiments to pizza shops but none appeared to have caused serious damage.