The special forces behind France's rescue operations

Friday's standoff against the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo terror attack and an apparent ally in France ended with all three dead, as well as at least four hostages. The operations, one at a factory in the northeast of the country, and one at a kosher market in eastern Paris, were spearheaded by elite special police forces considered among the best on Earth.

"These guys are absolutely world class," Thomas Sanderson, a counter-terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of the French forces. "The French are extremely hard-nosed when it comes to counter-terrorism... their tactical capabilities, their weapons, their conduct of an operation is all disciplined, highly trained, well resourced, and on par with the best in the world."

Two main units were involved: The National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) and the Research Assistance Intervention Dissuasion (RAID).

GIGN

A counter-terrorism unit of the French military, GIGN played a lead role in the operation against the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo shooting, Said and Cherif Kouachi. The French-Algerian brothers were cornered at a printing business near the town of Dammartin-en-Goële, about 30 miles northeast of Paris. GIGN members surrounded the complex and executed a raid, killing both brothers and rescuing the hostage safely, a French Gendarmerie official confirmed to CBS News.

The units are well equipped. Sanderson said he saw from news images that the GIGN units in the operation were using MP5s and MP7s, "short barrel, low caliber, highly accurate submachine guns" of German design.

"Those are the most accurate submachine guns in the world," said Sanderson of the German guns, adding that he also saw equipment of French and Belgian design. "They are very short, so it allows you to swivel very quickly in a closed and confined environment."

France, which Sanderson described as a "tier one target" for terrorist and militant groups, has relied on forces like GIGN in the past.

According to SpecWarNet, an online directory of global special forces, GIGN participated in "over 650 operations that freed over 500 hostages and eliminated dozens of terrorists" between 1974 and 1985.

GIGN was called in when an Air France flight was hijacked by an Islamic terrorist group in 1994, ultimately raiding the flight on the ground and killing four armed militants.

"They are elite and they are effective and I would certainly put them on par with the FBI hostage rescue team," Sanderson said.

RAID

A highly militarized French police special force, RAID played a role Friday in killing Amedy Coulibaly, a gunman who appeared to have ties to the Kouachi brothers and had taken hostages in a kosher market in eastern Paris.

According to reports, at least four of the hostages were killed and five injured at the supermarket. An Israeli government official, recounting a conversation between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hollande, told The Associated Press that 15 hostages were rescued.

"They have a range of skills," said Stephanie Pezard, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation and an expert in French security policy. "From the physical ability to put an end to a situation like this, to the many hours of negotiation that precede it."

According to the special forces directory SpecWarNet, France's national police force formed RAID in 1985 "in an effort to combat the rising amount of violent crime and terrorism sweeping through France at that time." One of its principal missions is listed on the site as intervention in "extreme criminal and terrorist attacks involving hijackings and hostage takings."

In 1993, when a man strapped with dynamite and calling himself the "Human Bomb" took hostages at a French nursery, RAID policemen moved in on the classroom when the man was sleeping, killing him when he woke and rescuing the children.

"They're extremely well trained and extremely professional," said Pezard. "Among the best."