Gunmen wanted to ‘avenge’ prophet
Print Edition
MASKED gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar!” stormed the Paris offices of a satirical magazine yesterday, killing 12 people, including the paper’s editor, before escaping in a getaway car. It was France’s deadliest terror attack in living memory.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said security forces were hunting for three gunmen after the noon-time attack on the weekly, whose caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed have frequently drawn condemnation from Muslims.
Twelve people died and eight were wounded, including four critically, officials said.
French President Francois Hollande called the slayings “a terrorist attack without a doubt” and said several other attacks had been thwarted in France “in recent weeks.”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Clad all in black with hoods and machine guns and speaking flawless French, the attackers forced one of the cartoonists at the weekly Charlie Hebdo — at the office with her young daughter — to open the door.
Workers were 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, said Christophe Crepin, a police union spokesman on the scene.
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.
Ten journalists were killed and two police, Crepin said, one of them assigned as Charb’s bodyguard and another who had arrived on the scene on a bike.
“Hey! We avenged the Prophet Muhammed! We killed Charlie Hebdo,” one of the men shouted, according to a video filmed from a nearby building and broadcast on French television. Other video images 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.
The gunmen abandoned their car at the northern Porte de Patin and escaped, Paris police said.
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-Qaida. In an interview with the newspaper l’Humanite, she said the shooting lasted 5 minutes.
France raised its security alert to the highest level and reinforced measures at houses of worship, stores and media offices. Top government officials held an emergency meeting and Hollande planned a televised address in the evening. Schools across Paris closed their doors.
World leaders, including US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron, condemned the attack, but supporters of the militant Islamic State group celebrated.
Both al-Qaida and Islamic State have repeatedly threatened to attack France. Just minutes before the attack, Charlie Hebdo tweeted a cartoon of the Islamic State’s leader giving New Year’s wishes.
Another, 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.”
“This is the darkest day of the history of the French press,” said Christophe DeLoire of Reporters Without Borders.
Luc Poignant of the SBP police union said the attackers left in a waiting car and later switched to another vehicle.
On social media, supporters of militant Islamic groups praised the move. One Twitter user, identified as a Tunisian loyalist of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, called the attack well-deserved revenge against France.
Elsewhere on the Internet, the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie was trending as people expressed support for journalistic freedom.
Charlie Hebdo has been repeatedly threatened for its caricatures of Muhammad and other controversial sketches. Its offices were firebombed in 2011 after a spoof issue featuring a caricature of the prophet on its cover.
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