by samsurikamal
Masked gunmen armed with AK-47s and shouting "Allahu
Akbar" stormed the offices of a French satirical news magazine Wednesday
in a terror attack that left 12 people dead, including the editor and two
police officers.
The suspects shot dead one of the officers on the street as
they fled — escaping first in a black Citroen that they abandoned after a
crash, and then in a sedan they carjacked from a bystander.
There was no verified claim of responsibility or motive for
the ambush, but the target, a weekly publication called Charlie Hebdo, has
published cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad and was firebombed three
years ago.
Late in the day, authorities released the names of three
suspects: Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, both in their 30s, and 18-year-old
Hamyd Mourad. Officials later said the youngest suspect had turned himself in.
France declared Thursday a national day of mourning, raised
its terror threat level and stepped up security for media organizations, large
stores and places of worship, and launched a manhunt for the killers with the
assistance of the FBI.
"We will find the people who did this," French
President Francois Hollande vowed. He later called for national unity.
"Freedom is always bigger than barbarism," he
said. "Vive la France."
Condemnation of the attack, which unfolded at 11:30 a.m.
local time (5:30 a.m. ET), poured in from the Vatican to the White House.
President Barack Obama said in a statement that "the
French people have stood up for the universal values that generations of our
people have defended." Secretary of State John Kerry called the victims
"martyrs for liberty."
They included the paper's editor, Stephane Charbonnier —
widely known by his pen name Charb — and his police guard, according to the
Associated Press, citing a police union spokesman. Also killed was economist
and writer Bernard Maris, who is a senior figure with France's central bank. Eleven
people were injured, four of them critically.
Prosecutors said two gunmen wearing balaclavas arrived at
the building in a black Citroen C3 and killed a maintenance worker on the way
in before heading to the third-floor editorial offices of the magazine. There,
they shot dead eight journalists, a guest and a police officer who had been
assigned to protect workers.
"Hey! We avenged the Prophet Muhammad! We killed
Charlie Hebdo," one of the men shouted in French, according to one video
shot from a nearby building and broadcast on French TV.
In another video, shouts of "Allahu Akbar" — or
"God is great" — can be heard as the shootings took place. The
Associated Press reported that the gunmen spoke flawless, unaccented French.
"It was a pretty horrible sight," said Anders
Lund, a 28-year-old musician who heard the gunshots from his apartment just 200
yards away. "I heard a few bangs, loud ones," he told NBC News.
"I did not know they were gunshots until I heard all the sirens."
"I went down there, and there were officers and people
from ambulances in the street. It was pretty chaotic...From afar I could see
people on stretchers being carried out. It did not look good."
As the gunmen fled, there were confronted by police three
times. Twice, they fired on officers, but no one was hurt. But on Boulevard
Richard le Noir, they killed an officer in cold blood, a prosecutor said.
Racing toward the north of the city, the suspects hit the
car of a civilian, who was wounded, officials said. Ditching their vehicle,
they then hijacked a Renault Clio at gunpoint.
Police union official Rocco Contento told Reuters that other
attacks remained "a possibility" and "other sites are being
secured."
Charlie Hebdo is a publication that has always courted
controversy with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders. It
published cartoons of Muhammad in 2012, forcing France to temporarily close
embassies and schools in more than 20 countries amid fears of reprisals. Its
offices were also firebombed in November 2011 after publishing a caricature of
Muhammad on its cover.
Its most recent tweet was a cartoon of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
the leader of ISIS. The caption translates to: "Best wishes, by the
way."
A cartoon published in this week's issue now seems like an
eerie premonition. "Still no attacks in France," an extremist fighter
says. "Wait — we have until the end of January to present our New Year's
wishes."
One of the magazine's editors, Gerard Biard, told France
Inter radio: "I don't understand how people can attack a newspaper with
heavy weapons. A newspaper is not a weapon of war."
Hollande said that several other attacks had been thwarted
in France "in recent weeks."
"No barbaric act will ever extinguish the freedom of
the press," the French president said in a tweet. "We are a united
country."
There was a similar response on Twitter, where the hashtag
#jesuischarlie — "I am Charlie" — expressed in solidarity with the
magazine was tweeted more than 162,000 times, according to analytics website
Topsy.
Thousands headed to a demonstration at the Place de la
Republique in central Paris. More than 22,000 Facebook users said they would
attend.
Wednesday's shooting is one of the worst terror attacks on
French soil. In March 2012, seven people were killed in three gun attacks
targeting French soldiers and Jewish civilians in Montauban and Toulouse, while
a string of bombings in 1995 killed eight and injured more than 100.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris said in a statement that it had no
plans to close or limit access to diplomatic facilities in France. "We are
open for business as usual," it said.
U.S. defense officials also said there were no plans to
increase the level of security for U.S. military bases and personnel throughout
Europe. Despite Wednesday's attack, there appears to be no direct or imminent
threat against U.S. military installations or personnel, the officials said.
NBC News' Ed Kiernan, Nancy Ing, David Wyllie, Robert
Windrem, Jim Miklaszewski and Jason Cumming, The Associated Press and Reuters
contributed to this report.
