Manhunt After Deadly Attack On Paris Newspaper Office

?

Three masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper Wednesday, killing 12 people, including its editor, before escaping in a car. It was France's deadliest postwar terrorist attack.

CBS News' Elaine Cobbe reports that, according to witnesses, two armed and masked men walked into the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and opened fire in the entrance hallway, killing people as they saw them. The gunmen reportedly sought out members of the newspaper's staff by name during the rampage through the 2nd floor office, which lasted between five and 10 minutes, according to witnesses.

Security forces were hunting for the gunmen who spoke flawless, unaccented French in the military-style noon-time attack on the weekly newspaper, located near Paris' Bastille monument. The publication's caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed have frequently drawn condemnation from Muslims.

President Francois Hollande called the slayings "a terrorist attack without a doubt," and said several other attacks have been thwarted in France "in recent weeks."

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 jammed Republique Square near the site of the shooting to honor the victims.

Top government officials held an emergency meeting and Hollande planned a nationally televised address later Wednesday evening.

An image from video posted online shows masked gunmen just before one of them appears to shoot a Paris police officer at close range, following an attack on the office of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Jan. 7, 2015, in Paris, France.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which also left four people critically wounded, and was condemned by world leaders as an attack on freedom of expression, but praised by supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Clad all in black with hoods and carrying machine guns, the attackers forced one of the cartoonists arriving at the office building with her young daughter to open the door with a security code.

The staff was in an editorial meeting and the gunmen headed straight for the paper's editor, Stephane Charbonnier - widely known by his pen name Charb - killing him and his police bodyguard first, said Christophe Crepin, a police union spokesman. Minutes later, two men strolled out to a black car waiting below, calmly firing on a police officer, with one gunman shooting him in the head as he writhed on the ground, according to video.

Ten journalists and two police office were killed, Crepin said, including one assigned as Charb's bodyguard and another who had arrived on the scene on a mountain bike. Among the dead were Bernard Maris, an economist who a contributor to the newspaper and was heard regularly on French radio, and Georges Wolinski, a celebrated cartoonist who also worked for Paris Match magazine.

"Hey! We avenged the Prophet Muhammad! We killed Charlie Hebdo," one of the men shouted in French, according to a video shot from a nearby building and broadcast on French TV. Other video showed two gunmen in black at a crossroads who appeared to fire down one of the streets. A cry of "Allahu akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great"- could be heard among the gunshots.

A victim is evacuated on a stretcher, Jan. 7, 2015, after armed gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, leaving at least 11 people dead.

The video showed the killers moving deliberately and calmly. One even bent over to toss a fallen shoe back into the small black car before it sped off. The car was later found abandoned in northern Paris, police said.

Luc Poignant of the SBP police union said the attackers switched to another vehicle that had been stolen.

A reporter for Britain's Telegraph newspaper in Paris told Sky News that the first two officers to arrive, who were apparently unarmed, fled after seeing gunmen armed with automatic weapons and possibly a grenade launcher.

Corinne Rey, the cartoonist who said she was forced to let the gunmen in, said the men spoke fluent French and claimed to be from al Qaeda. In an interview with the newspaper l'Humanite, she said the entire shooting lasted perhaps five minutes.

The security analyst group Stratfor said the gunmen appeared to be well-trained, "from the way they handled their weapons, moved and shot. These attackers conducted a successful attack, using what they knew, instead of attempting to conduct an attack beyond their capability, failing as a result."

Both al Qaeda and ISIS have repeatedly threatened to attack France. Just minutes before the attack, Charlie Hebdo had tweeted a satirical cartoon of the ISIS leader giving New Year's wishes:

Charlie Hebdo has been repeatedly threatened for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and other sketches. Its offices were firebombed in 2011 after an issue featured a caricature of the prophet on its cover. Nearly a year later, thepublication again published Muhammad caricatures, drawing denunciations from the Muslim world because Islam prohibits the publication of drawings of its founder.

Another cartoon, released in this week's issue and entitled "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.

"This is the darkest day of the history of the French press," said Christophe DeLoire of Reporters Without Borders.

"The motive here is absolutely clear; trying to shut down a media organization that lampooned the Prophet Mohammad," CBS News security consultant and former CIA deputy chief Mike Morell told "CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose. "What we have to figure out here is the perpetrators and whether they were self-radicalized or whether they were individuals who fought in Syria and Iraq and came back, or whether they were actually directed by ISIS or al Qaeda."

Morrell added a warning that law enforcement and intelligence agencies would need to "worry about copycat attacks, not only in France but in the rest of the world, and I would even say in the broader world to include the United States."

The New York Police Department released a statement, saying it had a detective stationed in Paris and "will continue to closely monitor the situation."

"There are standing contingency plans in place to adjust police deployments based on any unfolding situation in the world. That includes how we use and where we position and deploy specialized police resources," said Deputy Commissioner Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller.

In the winter 2014 edition of the al Qaeda 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."

An al Qaeda tweeter who communicated Wednesday with AP said the group is not claiming responsibility, but called the attack "inspiring."

CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate also noted on "CBS This Morning" that "France has been dealing with the problem of French foreign fighters flowing into Syria and Iraq and coming back into France."

He says it may be more likely, however, that the attack on Charlie Hebdo was carried out by "self-radicalized individuals, individuals who take their prompt from the propaganda of these groups and took it upon themselves, perhaps, to attack."

Zarate pointed to the attack by young French Muslim man Mohamed Merah, who shot up a Jewish community center in the country's south in March 2012, as an example of this sort of violence.

"France is not new to this, and the perpetrators could be a wide spectrum of individuals who were inspired to attack fellow French citizens," said Zarate.

President Barack Obama offered U.S. help in pursuing the gunmen. Calling it a "cowardly, evil attack" on journalists and a free press, he offered prayers and support for France.

Mr. Obama spoke in the Oval Office before meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden.

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,

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."

On social media, supporters of militant Islamic groups praised the move. One self-described Tunisian loyalist of al Qaeda and the Islamic State group tweeted that the attack was well-deserved revenge against France.

Elsewhere on the Internet, the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie was trending as people expressed support for weekly and for journalistic freedom.

?