Strasbourg manhunt: Police search for suspected gunman Chérif Chekatt after Christmas market terror attack

Authorities launch major operation to find shooter

French police step up hunt for Strasbourg gunman

French police placed an area of Strasbourg on lockdown on Thursday as armed officers hunt a gunman who shot dead three people in an attack on a Christmas market.

Security forces, including an elite tactical unit, have swarmed into the Neudorf neighbourhood to investigative if 29-year-old suspect Cherif Chekkat was hiding in a building in the area.

Authorities said a taxi driver dropped him off in the district, in the south-east of the city, after the shooting on Tuesday.

Police have said Chekkat is wanted “dead or alive” over the attack, which also wounded 13 other people.

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Key Points

• Net closes on Christmas market gunman as police cordon off area of Strasbourg

[13 December 2018 15:45 · Chris Baynes]

[13 December 2018 16:01 · Chris Baynes]

Armed officers have swarmed into Strasbourg's Neudorf neighborhood, south-east of the French city's centre, to investigative if gumman Cherif Chekkat is hiding in building in the area.

Police have homed in on Neudorf after a taxi driver reported dropping off Chekkat in the area following the deadly shooting on Tuesday.

A police official said the this afternoon's operation was based on "supposition only".

But it is a major operation, and the area has been placed on lockdown, prompting speculation that authorities are closing in on the gunman.

[13 December 2018 16:10 · Chris Baynes]

Police have been been given orders to catch Cherif Chekkat dead or alive, according to government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux.

More than 700 officers are involved in the manhunt, Griveaux told CNews television. 

Police have distributed a photo of Chekatt, who was wounded in an exchange of fire with security forces on Tuesday, with the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene." 

France raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level and deployed 1,800 additional soldiers across France to help patrol streets and secure crowded events. 

[13 December 2018 16:35 · Harry.Cockburn]

As the search for the Strasbourg Christmas market attacker continues, a reminder of how other terrorist manhunts ended: Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam hid in Brussels for 120 days before being foiled by a pizza order:

[13 December 2018 16:38 · Harry.Cockburn]

In 2016 the perpetrator of the Berlin Christmas market lorry attack Anis Amri made it to Italy before being spotted by police and killed in a shootout three days after the atrocity

[13 December 2018 16:40 · Harry.Cockburn]

In November 2015, Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who liked to boast about evading police, but was killed five days after the massacres when officers tracked him down in Saint-Denis.

[13 December 2018 16:44 · Harry.Cockburn]

The Paris prosecutor's office says a fifth person has been arrested and placed in custody in connection with the investigation into Tuesday's shooting near Strasbourg's Christmas market. 

The office said the man is a member of the "entourage" of main suspect Cherif Chekatt, 29, but not a family member. He was placed in custody on Thursday morning.

The four others detained were Chekatt's parents and two of his brothers. 

A massive manhunt is still underway for Chekatt.