At least four of France’s most celebrated cartoonists—Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier, Jean “Cabu” Cabut, Georges Wolinski, and Bernard “Tignous” Verlhac—are dead after two gunmen attacked a satirical magazine in Paris on Wednesday, shouting “We have avenged the Prophet.”
Police said at least 12 people were killed, two of them police officers, and 11 were wounded. The gunmen used AK-47s in the assault on Charlie Hebdo and are still at large. The car used to get away was later found in the nearby 19th district, in northeastern Paris. According to the AFP, the gunmen reportedly forced a staff member to open the door at gunpoint.
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Graphic videos shot from the roof of a nearby building show the assailants shooting and killing a police officer. According to witnesses, the gunmen told those left alive to tell the media they were from al Qaeda. School officials in Paris have canceled all school trips and any activities outside school buildings until further notice. According to The New York Times, one of the journalists present at the shooting, who asked that her name not be used, texted a friend afterward: “I’m alive. There is death all around me. Yes, I am there. The jihadists spared me.”
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The magazine was the target of a terrorist attack before, bombed in 2011 after publishing an anti-Islamic cartoon. In his speech on the scene, French President Francois Hollande claimed that multiple terrorist attacks had been foiled in the past few weeks, and that this attack on the magazine happened even though it was under protection. Speaking from the scene Wednesday, Hollande declared that “a manhunt has been launched.”
The magazine was the target of a terrorist attack before, bombed in 2011 after publishing an anti-Islamic cartoon. In his speech on the scene, French President Hollande claimed that multiple terrorist attacks had been foiled in the past few weeks, and that this attack on the magazine happened even though it was under protection.The last tweet published on Charlie Hebdo’s Twitter before the attack was a spoof cartoon of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi giving a New Year’s greeting.
This was the last tweet posted by Charlie Hebdo before the shooting:
