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| French President Francois Hollande, center, flanked with security forces arrives outside the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office, in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015. Masked gunmen stormed the offices of a French satirical newspaper Wednesday, killing at least 11 people before escaping, police and a witness said. The weekly has previously drawn condemnation from Muslims. |
PARIS (AP) --
Police hunted for three heavily armed men with possible links to
al-Qaida in the military-style, methodical killing of 12 people
Wednesday at the office of a satirical newspaper that caricatured the
Prophet Muhammad.
President Francois Hollande,
visiting the scene of France's deadliest such attack in more than half a
century, called the assault on the weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo "an
act of exceptional barbarism."
France raised
its terror alert system to the maximum - Attack Alert - and bolstered
security with more than 800 extra soldiers to guard media offices,
places of worship, transport and other sensitive areas. Fears had been
running high in France and elsewhere in Europe that jihadis returning
from conflicts in Syria and Iraq would stage attacks at home.
Two
officials identified the suspects as French brothers Said and Cherif
Kouachi, in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, whose
nationality wasn't immediately clear.
Heavily
armed police moved into the city of Reims, in France's Champagne country
east of Paris, apparently searching for the suspects. Video from BFM-TV
showed police dressed in white apparently taking samples inside an
apartment. It was not immediately clear who lived there.
One
of the police officials said they were linked to a Yemeni terrorist
network, and Cedric Le Bechec, a witness who encountered the escaping
gunmen, quoted the attackers as saying: "You can tell the media that
it's al-Qaida in Yemen."
The officials spoke
on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly
discuss the sensitive and ongoing investigation.
Cherif
Kouachi was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of
terrorism charges in 2008 for helping funnel fighters to Iraq's
insurgency. He said he was outraged at the torture of Iraqi inmates at
the U.S. prison at Abu Ghraib near Baghdad.
The
masked, black-clad men with assault rifles stormed the offices near
Paris' Bastille monument in the Wednesday noontime attack on the
publication, which had long drawn condemnation and threats - it was
firebombed in 2011 - for its depictions of Islam, although it also
satirized other religions and political figures.
Shouting
"Allahu akbar!" as they fired, the men used fluent, unaccented French
as they called out the names of specific employees.
Artist
Corinne Rey told the French newspaper L'Humanite that she punched in
the security code to the Charlie Hebdo offices after she and her young
daughter were "brutally threatened" by the gunmen.
Eight
journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor
were killed, said prosecutor Francois Molins. He said 11 people were
wounded - four of them seriously.
After
fleeing, the attackers collided with another vehicle, then carjacked
another car before disappearing in broad daylight, Molins said.
Among the dead: the paper's editor, Stephane Charbonnier.
The
staff was in an editorial meeting and the gunmen headed straight for
Charbonnier - widely known by his pen name Charb - killing him and his
police bodyguard first, said Christophe Crepin, a police union
spokesman.
Rey said the assault "lasted five minutes. I hid under a desk."
Two
gunmen strolled out to a black car waiting below, one of them calmly
shooting a wounded police officer in the head as he writhed on the
ground, according to video and a man who watched in fear from his home
across the street.
The witness, who refused to
allow his name to be used because he feared for his safety, said the
attackers were so methodical he first thought they were members of
France's elite anti-terrorism forces. Then they fired on the officer.
"They
knew exactly what they had to do and exactly where to shoot. While one
kept watch and checked that the traffic was good for them, the other one
delivered the final coup de grace," he said.
"Hey!
We avenged the Prophet Muhammad! We killed Charlie Hebdo," one of the
men shouted in French, according to video shot from a nearby building.
The
other dead were identified as cartoonists Georges Wolinski and Berbard
Verlhac, better known as Tignous, and Jean Cabut, known as "Cabu." Also
killed was Bernard Maris, an economist who was a contributor to the
newspaper and was heard regularly on French radio.
Le
Bechec, the witness who encountered the gunmen in another part of
Paris, described on his Facebook page seeing two men "get out of a
bullet-ridden car with a rocket-launcher in hand, eject an old guy from
his car and calmly say hi to the public, saying `you can tell the media
that it's al-Qaida in Yemen.'"
Charlie Hebdo
has been repeatedly threatened for its caricatures of the Prophet
Muhammad and other sketches. One cartoon, released in this week's issue
and titled "Still No Attacks in France," had a caricature of a jihadi
fighter saying "Just wait - we have until the end of January to present
our New Year's wishes." Charb was the artist.
In
a somber address to the nation Wednesday night, Hollande pledged to
hunt down the killers, and pleaded with his compatriots to come together
in a time of insecurity and suspicion.
"Let us unite, and we will win," he said. "Vive la France!"
France
raised its security alert to the highest level and reinforced
protective measures at houses of worship, stores, media offices and
transportation. Schools closed across Paris, although thousands of
people later jammed Republique Square near the site of the shooting to
honor the victims, waving pens and papers reading "Je suis Charlie" - "I
am Charlie." Similar rallies were held in London's Trafalgar Square as
well as Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin and Brussels.
"This is the darkest day of the history of the French press," said Christophe DeLoire of Reporters Without Borders.
Both
al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have repeatedly threatened to
attack France, which is conducting airstrikes against extremists in Iraq
and fighting Islamic militants in Africa.
During
Cherif Kouachi's 2008 trial, he told the court, "I really believed in
the idea" of fighting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
In
the winter 2014 edition of the al-Qaida magazine Inspire, a so-called
chief describing where to use a new bomb said: "Of course the first
priority and the main focus should be on America, then the United
Kingdom, then France and so on."
In 2013, the magazine specifically threatened Charb and included an article titled "France the Imbecile Invader."
The attack was condemned by world leaders.
President
Barack Obama offered U.S. help in pursuing the gunmen, saying they had
attacked freedom of expression. He offered prayers and support for
France, which he called "America's oldest ally."
British Prime Minister David Cameron said his country stood united with France,
"We
stand squarely for free speech and democracy. These people will never
be able to take us off those values," Cameron said in the House of
Commons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also condemned the attack as a "cynical crime," and pledged cooperation in fighting terrorism.
"I
think all of Europe is crying today," said Italian Premier Matteo
Renzi. "All the free world is crying. All men and women who believe in
freedom and reason are crying."
Salman
Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after his novel, "The Satanic
Verses," drew a death edict from Iran's religious authorities, said all
must stand with Charlie Hebdo "to defend the art of satire, which has
always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and
stupidity."
Mohammed Moussaoui, president of
the Union of French mosques, condemned the "hateful act," and urged
Muslims and Christians "to intensify their actions to give more strength
to this dialogue, to make a united front against extremism."
The
Organization of Islamic Cooperation based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia,
which represents 57 Muslim-majority nations, added its condemnation,
saying that violence and radicalism were the biggest enemies of Islam
and went against all its fundamental principles and values.
A
tweet from an al-Qaida representative who communicated Wednesday with
The Associated Press said the group was not claiming responsibility for
the attack, but called it "inspiring."
Supporters
of militant Islamic groups praised it. One self-described Tunisian
loyalist of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group tweeted that the attack
was well-deserved revenge against France.
The
hashtag (hash)JeSuisCharlie was trending as people expressed support
for the weekly and for journalistic freedom. The weekly's website
collapsed earlier Wednesday but was later restored.
It
was the deadliest attack on journalists since 2009, when 32 journalists
were killed in an ambush on a political convoy in the southern
Philippines.
Philippe Val, one-time Charlie
Hebdo chief, raised the possibility of publishing a special edition of
the newspaper, saying "a way of speaking has been exterminated."
"We must respond, because we must testify for them," he told RTL radio.
