France Pays Tribute To 2015 Terrorism Victims In Silent Ceremony

BY GEERT DE CLERCQ

REUTERS, JANUARY 10, 2016

People attend a ceremony at Place de la Republique square to pay tribute to the victims of last year's shooting at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, France, January 10, 2016. Image: Charles Platiau



France honored the victims of Islamist militant attacks last year in a thinly attended silent ceremony on Sunday, almost a year to the day when more than a million people marched in Paris to protest killings at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo laid a wreath by the statue of Marianne, symbol of the French republic, in central Paris. The statue has become a shrine to the 17 victims of the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish deli, and to the 130 people shot dead by militants on Nov. 13 at a concert, and in bars and restaurants in Paris.



"To the victims of the terrorist attacks in January and November ... In this place, the people of France pay their respect," read a metal plaque unveiled by Hollande and Hidalgo under a newly planted memorial oak tree on Place de la Republique in eastern Paris.

Neither Hollande or Hidalgo spoke at the ceremony, but veteran French rock star Johnny Hallyday, accompanied only by a guitar, sang a song about the march on Jan. 11 last year, which brought out the biggest crowds in Paris since the liberation of Paris from Nazi Germany in 1944.

The French army choir sang late Belgian singer Jacques Brel's "Les Prenoms de Paris" (the First Names of Paris) and "Le temps des cerises", a song associated with the socialist Paris commune movement in 1871, while two young actors read a speech by 19th century writer Victor Hugo.

The huge square in eastern Paris, the focal point of the January 2015 march attended by dozens of world leaders walking arm in arm, was relatively empty during the ceremony.

Hidalgo invited Parisians to come to the square with candles from 1700 Paris time (1600 GMT) and said the Marianne statue - covered with flowers, candles and pictures of the victims - will be permanently lit from now on.

"Paris is scarred, but we are still standing," she told French television after the ceremony.

Hollande, who stood stony-faced through the ceremony, later met with the families of the victims on the square.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said security forces remain on high alert as there is a real threat of more attacks.

"We are facing an extremely high level of threat, higher than it has ever been," Cazeneuve said on iTELE television.





(Additional reporting by Marine Pennetier; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

French Comic Dieudonne Detained For Defending Terrorism

People queue up to buy the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo newspaper at a newsstand in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015. In an emotional act of defiance, Charlie Hebdo resurrected its irreverent and often provocative newspaper, featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on the cover that drew immediate criticism and threats of more violence.

PARIS (AP) — French comic Dieudonne has been detained for defending terrorism after posting comments on Facebook — since deleted — that seemed to support the attackers who left 17 dead in the Paris region.

Dieudonne, who popularized an arm gesture that resembles a Nazi salute and who has been convicted repeatedly of racism and anti-Semitism, was in detention Wednesday. His provocative performances were banned last year but he has a core following among many of France's disaffected young people.

France's government is preparing new anti-terrorism measures and says it want to crack down on anyone who defends terrorism. On Monday, a man who praised the attackers in a drunken rant while resisting arrest was sentenced to four years in prison

France Mobilizes 10,000 Security Forces After Attack

Hayat Boumddiene the suspect in the kosher market attack. A police official says the man who has taken at least five people hostage in a kosher market on the eastern edges of Paris Friday appears linked to the newsroom massacre earlier this week that left 12 people dead. Paris police released a photo of Amedy Coulibaly as a suspect in the killing Thursday of a policewoman, and the official named him as the man holed up in the market. He said the man is armed with an automatic rifle and some hostages have been gravely wounded. He said a second suspect, a woman named Hayet Boumddiene, is the gunman's accomplice.

PARIS (AP) — French security forces are mobilizing in their search for what the prime minister called a "probably accomplice" to three days of bloodshed and terror around the capital, as well as to try to ensure the safety of the French people.

Manuel Valls said the search is urgent because "the threat is still present" after the attacks that left 17 people dead — journalists at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, hostages at a kosher market and three police officers — plus the three attackers, who were killed Friday in nearly simultaneous raids by security forces.

Meanwhile, France's defense minister said Monday the country is mobilizing 10,000 security forces to protect the population. Jean-Yves Le Drian said the deployment will begin Tuesday, and will focus on the most sensitive locations.

The widow of one of the attackers crossed into Syria on Thursday, the day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and the same day her husband shot a policewoman to death on the outskirts of Paris, according to Turkey's foreign minister.

Mevlut Cavusoglu told the state-run Anadolu Agency on Monday that Hayat Boumedienne arrived in Turkey from Madrid on Jan. 2, ahead of the attacks and stayed at a hotel in Istanbul before crossing into Syria on Thursday.

Video emerged on Sunday of her husband Amedy Coulibaly, explaining how the attacks would unfold and police want to find the person who shot and posted the video, which was edited after the attacks were over.

Valls told BFM television on Monday that France is at war against "terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam." Survivors say the Charlie Hebdo attackers, brothers from Paris, claimed they were from al-Qaida in Yemen, the group the U.S. considers the most dangerous offshoot of that network. In the video, Coulibaly pledges allegiance to the Islamic State group.

But ties among the men date back to at least 2005.

News Guide: Developments Following France Terror Attacks

Charlie Hebdo newspaper staff, with editorialist Patrick Pelloux, right, cartoonist Renald Luzier, known as Luz, left, react during a march in Paris, France, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015. Thousands of people began filling France's iconic Republique plaza, and world leaders converged on Paris in a rally of defiance and sorrow on Sunday to honor the 17 victims of three days of bloodshed that left France on alert for more violence.

A crowd of historic proportions marched through Paris on Sunday to honor the 17 victims of a three-day terror spree as new information emerged about one of the gunmen involved. These are the latest developments:

UNITY RALLY

In what France's Interior Ministry called the biggest demonstration in the country's history, the streets of Paris filled up for a giant display of unity and defiance in the face of the attacks against a satirical newspaper, a Jewish store and police. French media estimated up to 3 million took part, more than when the Allies liberated the city from the Nazis in World War II.

French President Francois Hollande was flanked by more than 40 world leaders walking arm in arm at the front of the procession. Also marching were families of the victims and journalists from newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the target of a shooting massacre that left 12 dead on Wednesday.

Rallies were also held in Cairo, Sydney, Berlin, Stockholm, Tokyo, and other cities worldwide.

GUNMAN'S VIDEO

A video emerged on militant websites Sunday purporting to show the gunman who killed four hostages at a kosher grocery pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group and defending the attacks on the satirical newspaper, a Jewish store and police.

Amedy Coulibaly, who had earlier killed a French policewoman, was shot to death as police raided the kosher supermarket on Friday.

Apparently filmed over several days and edited after the attacks in France, the footage shows Coulibaly displaying a small arsenal of weapons, doing pushups and, in broken Arabic, giving fealty to IS militants. Two men who dealt drugs with Coulibaly confirmed his identify to The Associated Press.

Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who massacred 12 people in the newspaper attack, were killed in a separate police raid on Friday.

JEWISH VICTIMS

Israel's prime minister said the bodies of four French Jews killed in the hostage standoff at the kosher grocery will be buried in Israel.

In a statement issued from Paris, Benjamin Netanyahu said he had "acceded to the request of the families of the victims of the murderous terror attack" and directed the government to assist in bringing the bodies to Israel. A funeral is tentatively set for Tuesday.

Netanyahu said he also asked French President Francois Hollande to maintain heightened security at Jewish institutions.

Last year, France topped the immigration list to Israel, according to the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency. Nearly 7,000 new immigrants from France came to Israel in 2014, double the number from the previous year.

5 RELEASED FROM CUSTODY

French authorities said they released five people detained in connection with the Paris attacks. That leaves no one in custody, though family members of the attackers have been given preliminary charges, said prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre.

Coulibaly's widow, who has been named as an accomplice, is still being sought and was last traced near the Turkey-Syrian border.

GERMAN ARSON ATTACK

In Germany, arsonists early Sunday attacked a newspaper that republished Charlie Hebdo's cartoons. Two men were detained. No one was hurt in the fire, but the newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost said several files in its archives were destroyed.

FRANCE ATTACK NURSE

In a bizarre twist, the former spiritual guide to one of the gunmen behind the mass killing at French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo was working at the same hospital where some of the massacre's victims were taken.

Paris Hospitals' spokeswoman Clemence Remy confirmed French media reports that Farid Benyettou, who was convicted in 2008 of being a holy war recruiter, is a trainee nurse at the emergency services of Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital.

Benyettou, whose past was known to administrators and whose training is almost over, was taken off the roster as a precaution. The hospital said he never entered into contact with any of the victims or their families.

In Support Of Freedom Of Expression

Suspected Hostage-Taking As French Track Shooting Suspect

Ambulances arrive in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast Paris, as part of an operation to seize two heavily armed suspects, Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. French security forces swarmed a small industrial town northeast of Paris Friday in an operation to capture a pair of heavily armed suspects in the deadly storming of a satirical newspaper. Shots were fired as the brothers stole a car in the early morning hours, said a French security official, who could not immediately confirm reports of hostages taken or deaths later in the day in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Paris.

PARIS (AP) — A pair of heavily armed brothers suspected in the deadly storming of a satirical newspaper were cornered inside a printing house near Charles de Gaulle airport on Friday and appear to have taken a hostage, officials said.

Hundreds of French security forces backed by a convoy of ambulances streamed into the small industrial town northeast of Paris in a massive operation to seize the men suspected of carrying out France's deadliest terror attack in decades.

At least three helicopters hovered above the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, near Charles de Gaulle airport. Two runways were closed to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff, an airport spokesman said. Schools went into lockdown.

Shots were fired as the brothers stole a car in the early morning hours, said a French security official. Tens of thousands of French security forces have mobilized to prevent a new terror attack since the Wednesday assault on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in the heart of Paris left 12 people dead, including the chief editor and cartoonist who had been under armed guard with threats against his life after publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. His police bodyguard also died in the attack, which unfolded during an editorial meeting.

Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi were named as the chief suspects after one of the two apparently left Said's identity card behind in their abandoned getaway car. The pair were holed up Friday inside CTF Creation Tendance Decouverte. Xavier Castaing, the chief Paris police spokesman, and town hall spokeswoman Audrey Taupenas, said there appeared to be one hostage inside the printing house.

Christelle Alleume, who works across the street, said that a round of gunfire interrupted her coffee break Friday morning. "We heard shots and we returned very fast because everyone was afraid," she told i-Tele. "We had orders to turn off the lights and not approach the windows."

Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said both men were known to intelligence services. A senior U.S. official said Thursday the elder Kouachi had traveled to Yemen, although it was unclear whether he was there to join extremist groups like al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based there.

The younger brother, Cherif, was convicted of terrorism charges in 2008 for his links to a network sending jihadis to fight American forces in Iraq. Both were also on the U.S. no-fly list, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said. The American officials also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss foreign intelligence publicly.

French President Francois Hollande called for tolerance after the country's worst terrorist attack in decades. "France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty — and thus of resistance — breathed freely," Hollande said.

Nine people, members of the brothers' entourage, have been detained for questioning in several regions. In all, 90 people, many of them witnesses to the grisly assault on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, were questioned for information on the attackers, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement.

A third suspect, 18-year-old Mourad Hamyd, surrendered at a police station Wednesday evening after hearing his name linked to the attacks. His relationship to the Kouachi brothers was unclear. The Kouachi brothers — born in Paris to Algerian parents — were well-known to French counterterrorism authorities. Cherif Kouachi, a former pizza deliveryman, had appeared in a 2005 French TV documentary on Islamic extremism and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 for trying to join up with fighters battling in Iraq.

Charlie Hebdo had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam, although it also satirized other religions and political figures. The weekly paper had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, and a sketch of Islamic State's leader was the last tweet sent out by the irreverent newspaper, minutes before the attack. Nothing has been tweeted since.

Eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the attack. Charlie Hebdo planned a special edition next week, produced in the offices of another paper. Editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb, who was among those slain, "symbolized secularism ... the combat against fundamentalism," his companion, Jeannette Bougrab, said on BFM-TV.

"He was ready to die for his ideas," she said. Authorities around Europe have warned of the threat posed by the return of Western jihadis trained in warfare. France counts at least 1,200 citizens in the war zone in Syria — headed there, returned or dead. Both the Islamic State group and al-Qaida have threatened France — home to Western Europe's largest Muslim population.

The French suspect in a deadly 2014 attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium had returned from fighting with extremists in Syria; and the man who rampaged in southern France in 2012, killing three soldiers and four people at a Jewish school, received paramilitary training in Pakistan.

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten, Elaine Ganley and Sylvie Corbet in Paris; and Ken Dilanian in Washington contributed to this report.

Obama Pays Respect At French Embassy After Paris Attack

French Ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud, left, looks on as President Barack Obama signs a condolences book during a visit to the French Embassy, on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, in Washington. Masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of a weekly newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, killing at least 12 people, including the editor, before escaping in a car. It was France's deadliest postwar terrorist attack.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Declaring that "terror is no match for freedom," President Barack Obama paid his respects Thursday at the French Embassy in Washington following the Paris terrorist attack that left a dozen people dead at a newspaper office.

A solemn-looking Obama filled nearly a page in a condolence book set up on a spare table draped with a blue tablecloth. Behind him hung a painting of George Washington at Yorktown with French Gen. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, better known as Count Rochambeau.

"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!" Afterward, Obama stood briefly near the table with his head bowed in a moment of silence before shaking hands with embassy personnel. Obama has denounced the "cowardly, evil attacks" that took place Wednesday at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. He said the assault was an attack on journalists and a free press.

French authorities are still searching for the two brothers who are believed to have carried it out.

Brothers Sought In French Attack Were On US No-Fly List

The suspects Cherif, left, and Said Kouachi in the newspaper attack along with a plea for witnesses. Police hunted Thursday for two heavily armed men, one with possible links to al-Qaida, in the methodical killing of 12 people at a satirical newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammed. France began a day of national mourning for what its president called "an act of exceptional barbarism.

PARIS (AP) — The younger brother was a ladies' man who belted out rap lyrics before the words of a radical preacher persuaded him to book a flight to Syria to wage holy war.

Less is known about his elder sibling, whose ID card was found in the getaway car used by the gunmen in the newspaper-office massacre in Paris. But U.S. officials said Thursday both were on the U.S. no-fly list and the older brother had traveled to Yemen, although it was unclear whether he was there to join up with extremist groups such as al-Qaida.

The Kouachi brothers — 32-year-old Cherif and 34-year-old Said — emerged as the subject of a huge manhunt after the precision attack Wednesday that killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly that lampooned radical Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad himself.

Witnesses said the gunmen in the attack claimed allegiance to al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen. Both Kouachi brothers — the Paris-born offspring of Algerian parents — were already known to American and French counterterrorism authorities.

Cherif, a former pizza deliveryman, had appeared in a 2005 French TV documentary on Islamic extremism and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 for trying to join up with fighters battling in Iraq.

It was the teachings of a firebrand Muslim preacher that put him on the path to jihad in his rough-and-tumble neighborhood of northeastern Paris, Kouachi was quoted as saying in the documentary. The cleric "told me that (holy) texts prove the benefits of suicide attacks," Kouachi was quoted as saying. "It's written in the texts that it's good to die as a martyr."

Associated Press reporters who covered the 2008 trial, which exposed a recruiting pipeline for Muslim holy war in the multi-ethnic and working-class 19th arrondissement of Paris, recalled a skinny young defendant who appeared very nervous in court.

Cherif Kouachi's lawyer said at the time that his client had fallen in with the wrong crowd. During the trial, Kouachi was said to have undergone only minimal training for combat — going jogging in a Paris park to shape up and learning how a Kalashnikov automatic rifle works by studying a sketch.

He was described at the time as a reluctant holy warrior, relieved to have been stopped by French counterespionage officials from taking a Syria-bound flight that was ultimately supposed to lead him to the battlefields of Iraq.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, however, said Thursday that Kouachi had been described by fellow would-be jihadis at the time as "violently anti-Semitic." Imprisonment changed him, his former attorney Vincent Ollivier told Le Parisien newspaper in a story published Thursday.

Kouachi became closed off and unresponsive and started growing a beard, the lawyer said, adding that he wondered whether the stint behind bars transformed his client into a ticking time bomb. There was a time, though, when he had very different interests.

Footage in the documentary, part of a prestigious French public television series titled "Evidence for the Prosecution," shows him in 2004, when, according to the narrator, the lanky young man in a black T-shirt with extremely close-cropped hair and a chunky wristwatch was keener on spending time with pretty girls than on going to the mosque. He appears relaxed and smiling as he pals around with friends.

At one point, with his baseball cap worn backward, Kouachi belts out some rap music and breaks into a joyful dance. After he was released from prison, he worked in a supermarket's fish section in the Paris suburbs for six months beginning in 2009. Supervisors said he gave no cause for concern.

In 2010, police detained him again in a probe of an alleged plot to free an Islamic militant sentenced to life in prison for bombing a Paris train line in 1995. Kouachi was ultimately released with no charges ever brought.

Much less has become public about the older brother, Said, but Cazeneuve said the jobless resident of the city of Reims was also known to authorities, despite having never been prosecuted, because he was "on the periphery" of the illegal activities his younger sibling was involved in.

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Thursday both brothers had been put on the U.S. no fly list and another U.S. official said Said Kouachi had traveled to Yemen. The U.S. no-fly list includes known or suspected terrorists and extremists, but the U.S. officials were tight-lipped about what else they know about the brothers, including whether they fought in the Middle East with extremist groups.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss foreign intelligence publicly. A French security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that American authorities had shared intelligence with France indicating that Said had traveled to Yemen several years ago for training. French authorities were seeking to verify the information, the official said.

In Reims, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northeast of Paris,) Said frequented a prayer room on the ground floor of an apartment building, according to the local imam, Abdul-Hamid al-Khalifa. Al-Khalifa told the AP that Said wore traditional North Africa clothes to prayers and didn't mix much — if at all — with other worshippers.

"Typically, he'd come late to prayers and leave right when they were done," Al-Khalifa said in a telephone interview. If French authorities are now hunting for the right suspects, it may be because of Said, Cazeneuve hinted.

In the stolen Citroen abandoned Wednesday by the gunmen, police found a French identity card in the older Kouachi's name, the minister said. Moreover, after the attackers dumped the first car, they grabbed another, and Cazeneuve said the elder Kouachi had been identified as "the aggressor" by witnesses shown his photo.

A third suspect identified by French authorities in the attack turned himself in Wednesday night. Mourad Hamyd, 18, surrendered at a police station after learning his name had been linked to the case in the news, said Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor.

She did not specify his relationship to the Kouachis.

Dilanian reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Raphael Satter contributed to this story.

12 Dead In Terror Attack On Paris Paper; Manhunt For Gunmen

Charb , the publishing director of the satyric weekly Charlie Hebdo, displays the front page of the newspaper as he poses for photographers in Paris. Masked gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar!” stormed the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper Wednesday Jan.7, 2015, killing 12 people including Charb, before escaping. It was France's deadliest terror attack in at least two decades

PARIS, France (Associated Press) — Masked gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar!" stormed the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper Wednesday, 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 have 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.

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, 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 mountain 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 entire shooting lasted perhaps five minutes.

France raised its security alert to the highest level and reinforced protective measures at houses of worship, stores, media offices and transportation. Top government officials held an emergency meeting and Hollande planned a nationally televised address in the evening. Schools across the French capital closed their doors.

World leaders — including 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 the slayings as well-deserved revenge against France.

Both al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have repeatedly threatened to attack France. Just minutes before the attack, Charlie Hebdo had tweeted a satirical cartoon of the Islamic State's leader giving New Year's wishes. 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."

"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 that had been stolen.

Obama's top spokesman said U.S. officials have been in close contact with the French since the attack. "We know they are not going to be cowed by this terrible act," spokesman Josh Earnest said. On social media, supporters of militant Islamic groups praised the move. One Twitter user who identified themselves 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 weekly and for journalistic freedom. Charlie Hebdo has been repeatedly threatened for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and other controversial sketches. Its offices were firebombed in 2011 after a spoof issue featuring a caricature of the prophet on its cover. Nearly a year later, the publication again published crude Muhammad caricatures, drawing denunciations from around the Muslim world, since Islam prohibits the publication of drawings of its founder.

Wednesday's attack comes the same day of the release of a book by a celebrated French novelist depicting France's election of its first Muslim president. Hollande had been due to meet with the country's top religious officials later in the day.

Associated Press writers Samuel Petrequin, Angela Charlton, Sylvie Corbet and John Leicester contributed.

World Expresses Shock At Attack On Charlie Hebdo Newspaper

People hug each other outside the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's office, in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015. Masked gunmen stormed the offices of a French satirical newspaper Wednesday, killing at least 11 people before escaping, police and a witness said. The weekly has previously drawn condemnation from Muslims

PARIS, FRANCE (Associated Press) -- Political leaders, journalists' groups and others around the world have expressed horror at the attack by gunmen on the Paris offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Here are some of the reactions:

"I don't understand how people can attack a newspaper with heavy weapons. A newspaper is not a weapon of war" — Charlie Hebdo editor-in-chief Gerard Biard to France Inter radio.

"This is an act of exceptional barbarism." — French President Francois Hollande.

"I strongly condemn the horrific shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris that has reportedly killed 12 people.... France is America's oldest ally, and has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the fight against terrorists who threaten our shared security and the world. Time and again, the French people have stood up for the universal values that generations of our people have defended. France, and the great city of Paris, where this outrageous attack took place, offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful vision of these killers." — U.S. President Barack Obama.

"This abhorrent act is not just an attack on the life of French citizens and the internal security of France. It also represents an attack on freedom of opinion and of the press, a core element of our free and democratic culture, for which there can be no justification." — German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"This House and this country stand united with the French people in our opposition to all forms of terrorism and we stand squarely for free speech and democracy. These people will never be able to take us off those values." — British Prime Minister David Cameron in the House of Commons.

"This was a barbaric act and an outrageous attack on press freedom. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. We stand in full solidarity with our ally France. All NATO allies stand together in the fight against terrorism. Terrorism in all its forms and manifestations can never be tolerated or justified." — NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

"We decisively condemn this cynical crime. We reaffirm our readiness to continue active cooperation in combating the threat of terrorism." — Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telegram of condolence to Hollande.

"Egypt stands by France in confronting terrorism, an international phenomenon that targets the world's security and stability and which requires coordinated international efforts to eradicate." — Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

"This is a brazen assault on free expression in the heart of Europe." — Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"This is a dark day for freedom of expression and a vibrant press culture. But above all, it is an appalling human tragedy." — Stephan Oberreit, director of Amnesty International France.

"This will create fear among people on a whole different level than we're used to. Charlie Hebdo was a small oasis. Not many dared do what they did. I don't know what's going to happen to them. Can they continue to publish the magazine?" — Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who lives under police protection after drawing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad