Gunmen Storm Office Of Satirical Magazine In Paris

Gunmen stormed the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in central Paris on Wednesday, leaving at least 12 people dead and sparking a massive manhunt for the killers.

Clad all in black with hoods and machine guns and speaking flawless French, the three attackers, who are now believed to be on the run, forced one of the publication's cartoonists, Corinne Rey, who was at the office with her young daughter, to open the door. In an interview with the newspaper L'Humanité, she said the entire shooting, which left 10 journalists and two police officers dead, lasted about five minutes.

Staff members of the magazine, which has courted controversy and the offense of some Muslims for publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, were in an editorial meeting at the time. The gunmen headed straight for the paper's editor, Stéphane Charbonnier — widely known by his pen name, Charb — killing him and his police bodyguard, said Christophe Crepin, a police union spokesman on the scene.

Minutes later, gunmen were seen walking to a black car waiting below, calmly firing on a police officer, with one of the killers shooting him in the head as he writhed on the ground.

"Hey! We avenged the Prophet Muhammad! We killed Charlie Hebdo," one of the men shouted, according to a video shot from a nearby building and broadcast on French television. The video could not immediately be confirmed by Al Jazeera.

Large numbers of police and ambulances rushed to the scene, where shocked residents spilled into the streets. Reporters also saw bullet-riddled windows and people being carried out on stretchers.

Bernard Cazeneuve, France's interior minister, vowed to "track down the three criminals." He added that "all of our resources will be mobilized so that we can find out who committed this act and make sure they are punished for this act of barbarity." French authorities have said that all school trips and outdoor activities have been canceled while the gunmen are at large.

French President François Hollande headed to the scene shortly after Wednesday's shooting and said that the dead were "cowardly assassinated" and that four others were critically injured. He described the shooting as a "terrorist operation against a newspaper that has been threatened several times." He added that 40 people were being protected in the aftermath of the shooting.

Charlie Hebdo as drawn repeated threats for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, among other controversial features. The newspaper's offices were firebombed in 2011 after a spoof issue featuring a caricature of Muhammad on its cover.

A year later, the magazine published more Muhammad drawings amid an uproar over an anti-Muslim film. The cartoons depicted Muhammad naked and in demeaning or pornographic poses. The French government defended free speech even as it rebuked Charlie Hebdo for fanning tensions.

"We treat the news like journalists. Some use cameras. Some use computers. For us, it's a paper and pencil," the Muhammad cartoonist, who goes by the name Luz, told The Associated Press in 2012. "A pencil is not a weapon. It's just a means of expression."

Charbonnier, among the 10 journalists killed Wednesday, also defended the Muhammad cartoons.

He told Le Monde newspaper two years ago, "I'd rather die standing than live on my knees." One of his last cartoons, published in this week's issue, seemed 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."



The attack, for which no one has yet claimed responsibility, comes amid what a number of commentators have identified as rising xenophobia in Europe, with thousands of protesters in several German cities rallying earlier this week against Muslim immigration. France's Muslim population of 5 million is Europe's largest.

"I am extremely angry. These are criminals, barbarians. They have sold their soul to hell. This is not freedom. This is not Islam, and I hope the French will come out united at the end of this," said Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Drancy mosque in Paris' Seine-St.-Denis northern suburb.

New York–based advocacy group the Committee to Protect Journalists condemned what its deputy director, Robert Mahoney, called "a brazen assault on free expression in the heart of Europe."