Charlie Hebdo attackWhat we know about the attack on Charlie Hebdo

• Two gunmen clad in black – Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his brother Said, 34, who are French citizens of Algerian origin - approached the building where the Charlie Hebdo’s editorial offices are located. They arrived in a stolen car. A third accomplice, an 18-year old – identified as high school student Hamyd Mourad — remained behind the wheel at the car and served as a look-out. The French police suspect that there was another accomplice, perhaps more than one, who remained half-a-block away, probably ready to intervene in case the two gunmen encountered resistance.
• Sources told AFP that Hamyd Mourad surrendered to police at 23:00 local time on Wednesday “after seeing his name circulating on social media.” “He has been arrested and taken into custody,” another source told the agency. He is being held at the Police Commissariat Central at Charleville-Mézières.
• Cherif Kouachi has been known to the police for over a decade now. He is a member of an organization called “La Filière des Buttes-Chaumont” which helps French Muslims find their way to Iraq to join the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda. In 2008 he was sentenced to three years in jail for his attempt, in 2005, to go to Iraq to join al-Qaeda there. In 2010 his name was also mentioned in connection with the prison escape attempt of Islamist Ait Ali Belkacem Smaïn, former member of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) who was sentenced in 2002 to life in prison for perpetrating the attack on the Orsay Museum in October 1995, in which thirty people were injured. Kouachi was particularly close to Djamel Beghal , another figure in French radical Islamic circles, who served ten years in prison for planning terrorist attacks. Kouachi is suspected of having participated in training with him. He was indicted in the case of the escape attempt of Belkacem Smaïn, but the case was dismissed.
• The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said all measures were being taken “to neutralize these three criminals.” A French prosecutor said all security agencies were participating, but authorities gave no details of the manhunt. Knowledgeable sources said the initial phase of the manhunt involves about 7,000 police officers and members of the security and intelligence services.
• The search for the two gunmen focuses on the city of Reims – a city of about 200,000 located eighty miles northeast of Paris, in the Champagne-Ardenne region.
• The two gunmen forced a Charlie Hebdo woman employee, who was smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk outside the building, to punch in the security code for the building’s door, allowing them to get into the building.
• So far, twelve people have been confirmed dead, including eight journalists, two police officers, and two private security guards. Eleven were wounded, and four remain in critical condition. One of the officers was shot at close range as he lay injured on the street. Witnesses heard him tell the gun man that he – the police officer – was a Muslim and begging to be spared, but the gunman shot him nonetheless.
• The attackers abandoned the car in the 19th arrondissement, near the Porte de Pantin metro station, where they hijacked another car, ordering the elderly motorist out. The motorist said they were insistent but polite, and that when he told them his dog was on the back seat of the car, they allowed him to open the backdoor and retrieve his dog.
• French president François Hollande declared Thursday a day of national mourning. Flags would fly at half-mast for three days. School throughout France will devote two hours to discussing tolerance, national unity, and core values such as freedom of speech and expression.
• Hundreds of thousands of people took part in spontaneous gatherings in in public squares across France Wednesday evening to condemn the attacks and pay tribute to the victims. The gatherings in Paris, Marseilles, Strasbourg, and Lyon were especially large.
• The terror alert in Paris was raised to its highest level. Children were taken from schools in 11th arrondissement, where the attack occurred. Police were deployed to guard newspaper offices, shopping centers, museums, and railway stations.