French forces hunt massacre suspects

298

French forces hunt massacre suspects
Agence France Presse/Jan. 09, 2015

PARIS: Elite French security forces deployed helicopters in a nighttime manhunt Thursday for the two brothers accused of slaughtering 12 people in an Islamist attack on a satirical weekly in Paris. “The search will continue tonight with the help of five helicopters,” a police source told AFP in the tiny village of Villers-Cotterets, northeast of the capital, where the suspects earlier robbed a petrol station and abandoned their getaway car.

The fugitives were thought to be behind Wednesday’s bloodbath at Charlie Hebdo, the worst terrorist attack in France for half a century, which the gunmen said they carried out as revenge for the weekly’s repeated publication of cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad. About 24 hours into the manhunt, they were identified after robbing the village petrol station, 80 kilometers from Paris, before fleeing again, possibly on foot and still armed with at least a Kalashnikov, police said.

Special police units rushed to the scene, backed by helicopters. Moving methodically, officers in heavy black bulletproof vests went house to house, rifles at the ready, under the nervous eyes of local residents. An AFP reporter saw them storm one house. The fact that they didn’t find the suspects only added to the mounting tension. “I live near the woods,” said village resident Roseline, a grandmother. “I’m afraid. Night is falling and they could be hiding nearby.” A maximum security alert declared in the capital Wednesday was expanded to the region where the manhunt took place. ISIS hailed the brothers as “heroes” on its Al-Bayan radio station.

In a further sign of the attackers’ motives, a source close to the case said that Molotov cocktails and jihadi-style flags had been discovered in another getaway vehicle used by the attackers and abandoned in Paris. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced that an international meeting on terrorism would take place in Paris Sunday, including U.S. and European officials. As the dramatic chase unfolded, bells tolled across France at midday, public transport paused and people gathered outside the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo in pouring rain with banners reading “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie).

Several thousand people gathered in Paris late Thursday, hours after groups of people right across the country stood at midday to mark a minute of silence. Television footage showed children at a Muslim school in the northern city of Lille holding up sheets of paper emblazoned “not in my name.” Across the world, crowds gathered from Moscow to Washington under the banner “I am Charlie” to show support for the controversial weekly, which had angered Muslims by repeatedly lampooning the Prophet Mohammed and was seen by supporters as an emblem of free speech. Meanwhile, several other incidents rocked the jittery nation.

Just south of Paris, a man with an automatic rifle shot dead a policewoman and wounded a city employee – an act that prosecutors said they were treating as terrorism, but which Cazeneuve said was not “at this stage” thought to be linked to Wednesday’s attack. There was also an explosion at a kebab shop in eastern France, with no casualties immediately reported. And two Muslim places of worship were shot at, prosecutors said.

Declaring Thursday a national day of mourning – only the fifth in the last 50 years – President Francois Hollande called the bloodbath “an act of exceptional barbarity.”
The Eiffel Tower, usually as much a Paris landmark at night as during the day, dimmed its lights at 8 p.m. The government also called for large demonstrations to show solidarity across the country Sunday.  National television ran constant live coverage of the manhunt for the masked, black-clad gunmen, who shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”) while killing some of France’s most outspoken journalists, as well as two policemen.

Arrest warrants were issued for Cherif Kouachi, 32, a known jihadi convicted in 2008 for involvement in a network sending fighters to Iraq, and his 34-year-old brother Said. Both were born in Paris and are French nationals of Algerian origin. Cazeneuve said tjat nine other people had been detained in the hunt for the brothers. Prime Minister Manuel Valls, meanwhile, told French radio the two suspects were known to intelligence services and were “no doubt” being tracked before Wednesday’s attack. Mourad Hamyd, an 18-year-old suspected of being an accomplice in the attack, handed himself in after he saw his name “circulating on social media,” police sources said. It was not clear what role, if any, he played in the attack.

Hollande ordered flags to fly at half-mast for three days in France and convened an emergency Cabinet meeting. After calling for “national unity,” Hollande invited arch-rival and opposition leader Nicolas Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace, his first visit since losing power in 2012. Even before the attack, France, home to Europe’s biggest Muslim population, was on high alert like many countries that have seen citizens leave to fight alongside ISIS in Iraq and Syria. U.S. President Barack Obama led the global condemnation of what he called a “cowardly, evil” assault. Charlie Hebdo will come out next week with a print-run of 1 million despite the decimation of its staff, a columnist for the weekly said