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French police identify 3 suspects in attack that killed 12 (w/video)

 
People gather in solidarity of the victims of a terror attack against a satirical newspaper, in Paris, Wednesday.
People gather in solidarity of the victims of a terror attack against a satirical newspaper, in Paris, Wednesday.
Published Jan. 8, 2015

PARIS

France's deadliest terrorist attack in modern memory unfolded with chilling precision here Wednesday as gunmen speaking fluent French burst into a satirical newspaper's weekly staff meeting and raked the room with bullets, leaving behind what one witness described as "absolute carnage."

The massacre claimed a dozen lives, including the provocative paper's well-known editor and two police officers, while traumatizing a nation that had long feared such an assault but was nonetheless shocked by the ferocity and military-style professionalism with which it was carried out.

After shooting dead their final victim, the exultant killers calmly fled, sparking a manhunt that extended across Paris and deep into its suburbs.

France raised its security alarm to the highest level and mobilized teams on foot, by air and in vehicles seeking the three masked assailants who carried out the assault, in which they shouted the Arabic call of "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," amid the gunfire, as shown on video posted by France's state-run broadcaster.

By early today, police had surrounded an apartment building in the city of Reims — about a two-hour-drive from Paris — with French media reporting that heavily armed officers were preparing to raid the site. But they pulled back around 2 a.m.

One man turned himself in, the Associated Press reported late Wednesday, citing an unnamed French judicial official.

According to police and other officials, two of the suspects are French brothers Said Kouachi, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32. Both are from the Paris area. The third is Hamyd Mourad, 18, of Reims.

Wednesday's mass killing added Paris to a list of European capitals, including London and Madrid, that have experienced major terrorist attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

The assault came at a time of heightened anxiety across Europe about the threat of radical Islamist groups, as thousands of young men and women from across the continent have poured into Syria to join the fight. Many have come home radicalized by the experience.

There was no indication Wednesday that any of the three assailants had battlefield experience. But experts said the men were well-prepared for their mission, and there were widespread reports that one of the suspects, Cherif Kouachi, had earlier been convicted of recruiting fighters to battle U.S. forces in Iraq.

Wednesday's raid was "a terrorist attack without a doubt," said French President Francois Hollande, who later declared today as a national day of mourning.

"Journalists and police officers have been assassinated in cowardly fashion," Hollande said after visiting the scene. "France is in a state of shock."

The attack appeared planned to coincide with a staff meeting at the weekly Charlie Hebdo and left its editor, Stephane Charbonnier, and other prominent cartoonists among the dead.

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Edouard Perrin, a former writer for the newspaper who was in the office across the hall at the time of the attack, said he took cover when the shooting started and was among the first to enter after the killers fled.

"When we got inside, it was an absolute carnage, in the proper sense of the word," he said.

At the sealed offices and nearby streets, forensic experts looked for DNA or other possible clues to aid in the rapidly expanding hunt.

Across Paris, meanwhile, security patrols were stepped up at media outlets, transportation hubs and other key sites.

The attack is likely to raise calls for tougher crackdowns on suspected extremists in a country that has faced decades of internal tensions over its Muslim population, which at 5 million is the largest in Europe.

In recent years, France has thrust itself to center stage in the war against Islamic extremism. In 2013, French forces joined those loyal to Mali's government to push back an onslaught by Islamic militants. France was also the first nation to join the U.S.-led effort against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, conducting bombing raids.

In just the past several weeks, France has been particularly on edge. Before Christmas, a man yelling "God is Great" in Arabic was shot after stabbing three police officers in a suburb of Tours in central France.

Also, 23 people were injured in Nantes and Dijon after men, in two separate incidents, drove vehicles into crowds. French officials deployed between 200 and 300 more military personnel on the streets last week, in addition to 780 already on the ground.

But the mood in Paris on Wednesday was less angry and fearful than mournful and resolved.

As dusk fell, a somber crowd of about 35,000 Parisians converged on the Place de la Republique to show solidarity with the attack's victims. Many carried handmade signs with the words Je Suis Charlie — I am Charlie — and mourners spelled out the words in votive candles. The crowd periodically broke out in rhythmic chants of "Charlie!"

"Charlie is exactly what France needs — they make us laugh and they make us think," said Dominique Ragu, a cartographer who came to the rally with her daughter and father. "This was an attack on freedom of expression. It was an attack on humor."

At the nearby offices of the leftist newspaper Liberation, the entrance was guarded by police wielding assault rifles. Inside, staff were mourning for lost friends, but were also defiant.

"We need to be like Charlie. We need to be strong. We need to be irreverent. We need to be impactful," said Johan Hufnagel, the paper's deputy editor. "If we change because of these guys, it will mean they will have won."

The attack appeared planned to target the newspaper's most prominent figures.

One of the newspaper's designers, Corinne Rey, said two hooded gunmen, speaking perfect French, forced her to type her passcode at the door. It was shortly before 11:30 a.m., the time of the newspaper's editorial meeting attended by key members of the staff.

"I had gone to pick up my daughter at day care. Two hooded gunmen arrived at the door of the building and brutally threatened us," Rey told the French newspaper L'Humanite.

Amateur footage broadcast on France 24 showed panicked employees of Charlie Hebdo scrambling onto the roof at the offices in the densely populated 11th arrondissement of Paris. Another video clip showed black-clad gunmen firing on a police officer on the sidewalk before escaping in a black car.

Christophe Crepin, a police union spokesman, said the dead include 10 members of the newspaper staff, among them the 47-year-old Charbonnier, who was widely known by the pen name Charb. Other noted staff members killed included economic affairs columnist Bernard Maris, 68, and renowned cartoonist Jean Cabut, 76.

Two police officers also were killed, including one assigned as the editor's bodyguard. At least 20 others were injured, including four listed in critical condition, police said.

"We killed Charlie Hebdo," one of the assailants shouted, according to a video made from a nearby building and later broadcast on French television

"The murderers dared proclaim Charlie Hebdo is dead," said Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington. "But make no mistake, they are wrong. Today, and tomorrow, in Paris, in France and across the world, the freedom of expression this magazine represented is not able to be killed by this kind of act of terror."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack, but messages of praise appeared on Web sites and other online forums linked to Islamist militants, said the Washington-based SITE monitoring group, which tracks extremist posts.

Only hours before the attack, Charlie Hebdo's Twitter account carried a cartoon entitled "Still No Attacks in France" showing Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi giving a New Year's greeting.

"Just wait," a fighter says in the drawing. "We have until the end of January to present our New Year's wishes."