Tens of thousands of French police and soldiers continue to search for Cherif and Said Kouachi, who allegedly carried out attack in Paris Manhunt continues as more terrorist links emerge

As day broke in France on Friday, tens of thousands of French police and soldiers resumed their hunt for two Parisian brothers suspected of the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo magazine.

The focus of the pursuit had already shifted from the streets of the capital to the woods and marshes of rural Picardy the previous day.

With helicopters buzzing overhead, black-uniformed members of the police special counter-terrorist unit, Raid, rolled along the country roads in armoured cars, combing the wooded hills of the area and going on foot from house to house in a cluster of villages east of the town of Villers-Cotterêts, 70 miles north-east of the capital. Residents in the villages of Longpont and Corcy were told to stay at home while the hunt was under way.

The suspects, Cherif and Said Kouachi, were reported to have robbed a petrol station in the area at 10.30am and driven off with assault rifles and rocket launchers visible in the back of the getaway car they hijacked in a desperate escape from Paris. A local newspaper, the Courrier Picard, reported that the brothers “are thought to have abandoned their vehicle somewhere in the search area”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police stand guard in front of the Hotel de Ville, the town hall in Paris. Photograph: Simone Perolari/Corbis

Despite the intense and focused manhunt, there was no certainty that the two wanted men, the sons of Algerian immigrants, had not slipped through the net. “We have not found them, there is no siege,” an interior ministry official in Paris said. “There were just some witness accounts, so we are checking.”

The highest level security alert was extended from Paris to Picardy and hundreds of soldiers were flown in to support 88,000 police officers assigned to the manhunt. There were more than 800 soldiers, including paratroopers, patrolling on the streets of the capital, an unusual and unsettling sight for many of its residents. But just as Parisians were striving to steady their nerves and come to terms with Wednesday’s murder of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices, reports spread that the suspects were heading back to Paris at high speed, and new roadblocks were set up at the main routes into the city.

Those rumours dissipated but the prevailing atmosphere of fear and grief was deepened by another gun attack in the southern suburb of Montrouge. At about 8am, a 25-year-old trainee policewoman, Clarissa Jean-Philippe, was shot in the back as she went to investigate a traffic accident. A street cleaner at the scene was also wounded. The gunman, said to be wearing a bulletproof vest and wielding an automatic rifle, fled the scene.

William Thomas, 19, who lives close to the scene of the attack, said: “I was woken up by the first three shots. Then I heard someone shout ‘Take that’ and there were another two shots.” The interior ministry said there was no apparent connection with Wednesday’s killings of 10 magazine staff and two policemen, but the Montrouge case was also handed to anti-terrorism judges to investigate.

Police said on Thursday night they had made two arrests in connection with the killing. “Two people are currently in custody,” a police source told Le Parisien newspaper: a 52-year-old man and “a second person”.

With the manhunt at full tilt, violent tremors from the massacre continued to sweep through the country. There were reports of attacks on three mosques at Le Mans, Villefranche-sur-Saone and Narbonne. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Front National (FN), took the opportunity to press one of her key demands, for a referendum on the death penalty.

Other politicians sought to limit the FN’s political gain from the tragedy by excluding it from memorial events – including a major rally on Sunday – drawing complaints from Le Pen, who claimed that the decision proved that “there is no longer national unity”.

At noon on a national day of mourning, much of the country observed a moment of silence in honour of the dead, and the gesture was echoed in newsrooms and some police forces around the world.

In Paris, many of those who gathered in public squares for the commemoration held up pencils in symbolic support of freedom of expression after such a direct assault, apparently intended to punish the satirical Charlie Hebdo’s staff for their use of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The bells of Notre Dame pealed for the victims, and the national anthem, the Marseillaise, was played over loudspeakers in the Place de la Republique, where a large crowd gathered before 8pm, when the lights on the Eiffel tower were turned off in an expression of the city’s grief.

With the Kouachi brothers still at large, the involvement of outside groups also remained unclear. The perpetrators of the massacre were reported by at least one witness to have claimed to be acting for al-Qaida in Yemen, an apparent reference to a group that normally calls itself al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, but no link was confirmed, leaving open the possibility that it may have been a “lone wolf” attack.

Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his brother Said, 34, were born in eastern Paris to Algerian immigrants who died when they were young. They were raised in an orphanage in the city of Rennes. Cherif was arrested in 2005 and jailed for 18 months for involvement in a radical Islamist network in Paris that helped send volunteers to fight for al-Qaida in Iraq, although he never made the trip.

AFP cited a “senior US administration official” who said it was believed Saïd had trained with Al Qaeda in Yemen. Another official said both brothers had been on a US terror watch list “for years.”

The brothers were both flagged in a US database as terror suspects, and also on the no-fly list, meaning they were barred from flying into the United States, the officials said.

Separately, a police source told AFP the younger of the pair, Cherif, had not traveled overseas recently and neither brother was being monitored “as targets who could move into action.”

Cherif’s former lawyer, Vincent Ollivier, said his spell in jail had seemed to rid him of his radical views.

“He was part of a group of young people who were a little lost, confused, not really fanatics in the proper sense of the word,” Ollivier told Libération. “He hadn’t really given any great thought to Islam and didn’t seem all that determined.”

In 2010 he was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a plot to free a jihadi jailed for the 1995 bombings of Paris rail stations, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

In the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack, police were looking for three suspects, but video footage suggested there may have been only two gunmen, who drove off in a black car.

A third person named by police, an 18-year-old said to be the brother-in-law of the Kouachis, turned himself into police in north-eastern France late on Wednesday after hearing that he was being sought. His schoolfriends tweeted that he had been in a classroom at the time of the attack.

At noon on Thursday – a national day of mourning – much of the country observed a moment of silence in honour of the dead, and the gesture was echoed in newsrooms and some police forces around the world.

In Paris, many of those who gathered in public squares for the commemoration held up pencils in symbolic support of freedom of expression after such a direct assault, apparently intended to punish the satirical Charlie Hebdo’s staff for their use of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The bells of Notre Dame pealed for the victims, and the national anthem, the Marseillaise, was played over loudspeakers in the Place de la Republique, where a large crowd gathered before 8pm, when the lights on the Eiffel tower were turned off in an expression of the city’s grief.

As more details emerged of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, it became increasingly clear that the gunmen had a list of the magazine’s leading figures they intended to murder, calling them by name before shooting them. Jeanette Bougrab, the partner of the editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, said the cartoonist known universally as “Charb” was “shot standing up. He was executed. He died for his ideas. My partner died, assassinated, because he drew in a magazine.”

The satirical weekly said it would continue to publish. Fleur Pellerin, the French culture minister, said she would release €1m in emergency aid to help it, and Libération offered its surviving staff office space. A lawyer for Charlie Hebdo, Richard Malka, said the an edition of one million copes would be printed next Wednesday. Its usual print run is 60,000. Guardian Media Group announced on Thursday night it was giving £100,000 to help sustain publication of the magazine.

Ceremonies to mark the tragedy brought out a sense of solidarity among Parisians. Claude Bouris, 67, a retired stage manager who had spent Thursday night at a vigil for those killed, said: “This attack strikes at the very heart of all France stands for – freedom and freedom of speech.” He said the country was devastated. He felt everyone – politicians, intellectuals – must now unite to avoid any unfair targeting of the large number of Muslims in France.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People observe a minute’s silence outside Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Photograph: Imago/Barcroft Media

Many people took the day off work and some insisted that France, with its history of Nazi occupation, must stand firm to defend its principles of freedom and equality in the face of the attack.

Outside schools, signs were put up warning of the security threat. One nursery school had a written note warning that all trips had been cancelled, including concerts at the town hall and a visit to the Pompidou centre. On news kiosks, black posters proclaimed: “I am Charlie Hebdo.”

Magali de Rapheles, 22, a student, shed a tear as she observed the silence on the No 13 Métro line. “I’m still in shock. A minute of silence is important to remember and to process even on the Métro,” she said.

The US president, Barack Obama, visited the French embassy in Washington, DC, to sign a book of condolence.

“As allies across the centuries, we stand united with our French brothers to ensure that justice is done and our way of life is defended,” Obama wrote.

“We go forward together knowing that terror is no match for freedom and ideals we stand for ideals that light the world.”

He signed off with “Vive la France!”

The US attorney general, Eric Holder, is expected in Paris on Sunday to meet the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, and their European counterparts to discuss ways to combat extremism. “The meetings will include discussions on addressing terrorist threats, foreign fighters and countering violent extremism,” the US Justice Department said.



The head of MI5, Andrew Parker, warned an attack on the UK was “highly likely” and called for increased powers to identify and monitor suspects in the wake of the attack.

In a show of religious solidarity, four prominent French imams issued a joint statement with the Vatican denouncing the massacre, warning that the world is a dangerous place without freedom of expression but urging the media to be respectful of religion.



The imams were visiting the Vatican this week along with French Catholic bishops. The Vatican’s office for inter-religious dialogue said the four joined Pope Francis in condemning the cruelty of the attack and urging all believers to show solidarity with the victims. They said dialogue among different faiths was the only way to eliminate prejudice.

In addition to the pope, the signatories were Djelloul Seddiki, head of the Grand Mosque of Paris; Tareq Oubrou, director of the Bordeaux mosque; Azzedine Gaci, of the Villeurbanne mosque; and Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the Union of Mosques in France. Pope Francis has celebrated a mass in memory of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, decrying the “human cruelty” that people are capable of.