France Gripped By Fear After Paris Terror Attacks

PARIS (AP) — What started as a hunt for two terror suspects grew into something worse — fears of a nest of terrorists that could strike again in the heart of Paris. The suspects in three attacks knew each other, had been linked to previous terrorist activities, and one had fought or trained with al-Qaida in Yemen, which claimed ownership Friday of this week's newspaper massacre.

Investigators are now trying to determine to what extent the attacks were coordinated.

The Kouachi brothers had been the subject of a vast manhunt following the armed attack on the Charlie Hebdo weekly that claimed 12 lives on Wednesday. The brothers died Friday when police attacked the building near Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris where they had barricaded themselves.

An acquaintance of at least one of the Kouachis, Amedy Coulibaly, 32, was identified as the suspected killer of a policewoman in suburban Paris the previous day —and as the man armed with a semi-automatic rifle who opened fire Friday in a kosher market near Paris' Porte de Vincennes and holed up with hostages there.

He threatened to kill his captives if the Kouachis weren't freed. Like the brothers, he was killed when police moved in.

According to French judicial documents obtained by The Associated Press, the connections among the terrorist suspects date back to 2010, when Coulibaly was sentenced to five years in prison for an abortive attempt to free another terrorist from prison. Smain Ait Ali Belkacem was serving a life sentence for a bombing attack on the Paris rapid transit system in 1995.

Cherif Kouachi, 32, the younger of the brothers, was detained in that investigation, but freed later without being tried. A former pizza deliveryman, he 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.

The French judicial documents said Coulibaly and the younger Kouachi knew each another, and traveled with their wives in 2010 to central France to visit a radical Islamist, Djamel Beghal, who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison on a terrorism-related charge.

Police issued a bulletin Friday asking anyone with information about Coulibaly's wife, 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, to contact them, saying she was potentially "armed and dangerous."

According to the judicial documents, a police search of Coulibaly's residence in 2010 turned up a crossbow, 240 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, films and photos of him during a trip to Malaysia, and letters seeking false official documents.

In a police interview that same year, Coulibaly identified Cherif Kouachi as a friend he had met in prison and said they saw each other frequently, according to a transcript of the interview obtained by the Journal du Dimanche newspaper and posted on the newspaper's website.

According to the newspaper, he told the police that people he met in prison used the nickname "Dolly" for him. He said he was employed as a temp worker at a Coca-Cola factory.

"I know a lot of criminals because I met heaps of them in detention," he is quoted as telling the police.

Michel Thooris, secretary-general of France's police labor union, told AP he didn't believe these were "three people isolated in their little world."

"This could very well be a little cell," he said. "There are probably more than three people," he added, given that Cherif Kouachi and Coulibaly had had contacts with other jihadist groups in the past.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, speaking in a TV interview late Friday, also indicated authorities are bracing for the possibility of new attacks.

"We are facing a major challenge" and "very determined individuals," Valls said.

Francois Molins, the Paris prosecutor, said authorities increasingly grew to see links between the attackers after they discovered that Boumeddiene and the companion of one of the Kouachi brothers had exchanged about 500 phone calls.

Speaking to reporters late Friday, he said that 16 people had been detained in the investigation. Officials were continuing to look for "possible accomplices, the financing of these criminal actions, the source of these weapons and all the help that (the terror suspects) might have benefited from, in France as well as overseas, in Yemen," Molins said.

The latest U.S. assessments described to the AP show that the brothers led a normal life for long enough in recent years that the French began to view them as less of a threat and reduced the surveillance. They are continuing to investigate whether the brothers' steps away from radical Islam were part of a plan of misdirection, or whether it was real — and that they simply had another change of heart and decided to turn to violence.

On Friday, a French TV news network said it spoke directly to Coulibaly before his death, and he said he and the brothers were coordinating and that he was with the Islamic State extremist group. BFM, the network, said it also talked to the younger Kouachi brother, who claimed to be financed and dispatched by al-Qaida in Yemen, normally a rival organization.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula said Friday it had planned the assault on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper staff — but did not mention the other terrorist acts.

Separately, officials in Yemen and the U.S. said Said Kouachi, 34, the older of the brothers, had trained with al-Qaida in Yemen. Yemeni authorities suspect he fought with the Islamic extremist group at the height of its offensive in the country's south, a Yemini security official said Friday.

Another senior security official said Said Kouachi was in Yemen until 2012. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation into the older Kouachi brother's stay.

A U.S. law enforcement official said Friday that investigators believe Said Kouachi traveled to Yemen to receive weapons training from al-Qaida. The official, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name, said the brothers had raised enough concern to be placed on the U.S. no-fly list because one had traveled to Yemen and the other had been convicted of terrorism charges.

Though the brothers claimed affiliation to al-Qaida, the U.S. official said, investigators were still trying to determine whether al-Qaida had ordered the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices or if the brothers had done it on their own.

The official said investigators have been searching for any contacts that the brothers maintained with individuals in the United States, but had not yet found any.

French authorities knew Kouachi traveled to Yemen, but it's not clear whether they knew what he did there, U.S. officials believe. Still, French authorities placed both Kouachi brothers under close surveillance when he returned.

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Charlie Hebdo attack: Helicopters hunt for suspects in woods of France

Longpont, France (CNN)An intense manhunt for two brothers wanted in the Charlie Hebdo magazine massacre focused Thursday on northern France's Picardy region, where sources close to the investigation said a police helicopter might have spotted the suspects.

Authorities believe that Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, entered a wooded area on foot, the sources told CNN's Chris Cuomo. Now investigators are using helicopters equipped with night vision tools to try to find them, the sources said.

Earlier Thursday, a police helicopter glimpsed what investigators believed to be the fugitives in the same area, near Crepy-en-Valois, France.

Said Kouachi, left, and Cherif Kouachi are suspects in the Paris attack.

Police flooded the region, with heavily armed officers canvassing the countryside and forests in search of the killers. They came after a gas station attendant reportedly said the armed brothers threatened him near Villers-Cotterets in Picardy, stole gas and food, then drove off late Thursday morning.

About 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the gas station, police blocked a rural country road leading to the French village of Longpont. Authorities have not commented in any detail, but pictures showed heavily armed police officers with shields and helmets in the blocked-off area.

Hours later, a CNN team witnessed a convoy of 30 to 40 police vehicles leaving a site near Longpont.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls put the Picardy region on the highest alert level, that same level that the entire Ile-de-France region, including Paris, is already under.

As the search for the suspects intensified, details emerged about their past travels -- and possible training abroad.

Said Kouachi went to Yemen for training, a French official told CNN. The training he received included instruction from al Qaeda's affiliate there on how to fire weapons, a U.S. official said, citing information French intelligence provided to the United States.

In addition to northern France, other parts of the country have also been under scrutiny.

More than 80,000 police were deployed nationwide Thursday, France's interior minister said.

Earlier Thursday, a gunman -- dressed in black and wearing what appeared to be a bulletproof vest, just like those who attacked the Charlie Hebdo offices -- shot and killed a female police officer in the Paris suburb of Montrouge. A municipal official was seriously wounded in that attack, France's interior minister said. One person was arrested, Paris Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman said, though it's not known whether the shooter is still at large.

Authorities have called that a terror attack, but they haven't connected it to Wednesday's slaying of 12 at the satirical magazine's Paris headquarters.

Latest updates at 10:15 p.m. ET

• Investigators found empty containers and gasoline inside a car driven by the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack, according to U.S. and Western officials who say they received information from French intelligence about the vehicle. The suspects may have intended to use the items to make rudimentary explosives such as Molotov cocktails, the officials told CNN's Pamela Brown, Barbara Starr and Deborah Feyerick.

• The head of Britain's MI5 security service told an audience in London that his agency was offering French intelligence officials its "full support" as France responds to Wednesday's terror attack in Paris.


• Paris' iconic Eiffel Tower went dark Thursday night in remembrance of the victims of Wednesday's attack.

• In the United States, the Paris Las Vegas resort said it also planned to dim the lights on its half-sized replica of the tower Thursday night. "We stand with Paris in mourning the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack," a spokeswoman for the hotel said.

Charlie Hebdo to publish next Wednesday

While its business is satire, Charlie Hebdo has been the subject of serious venom.

That includes its publication of cartoons lampooning the Muslim prophet, Mohammed, which some found very offensive.

Satirical magazine is no stranger to controversy

The magazine's offices were fire-bombed after that in 2011, on the same day the magazine was due to release an issue with a cover that appeared to poke fun at Islamic law.

It was attacked again Wednesday, when two masked men entered its offices not far from the famed Notre Dame Cathedral and the Place de la Bastille.

Map: Charlie Hebdo HQ, Paris

On their way into the building, they asked exactly where the offices were. The men reportedly spoke fluent French with no accent.

They barged in on the magazine's staff, while they were gathered for a lunchtime editorial meeting. The gunmen separated the men from the women and called out the names of cartoonists they intended to kill, said Dr. Gerald Kierzek, a physician who treated wounded patients and spoke with survivors.

The shooting was not a random spray of bullets, but more of a precision execution, he said.

The two said they were avenging the Prophet Mohammed and shouted "Allahu akbar," which translates to "God is great," Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said.

Cell phone cameras caught the two gunmen as they ran back out of the building, still firing. One of them ran up to a wounded police officer lying on a sidewalk and shot him point-blank.

It was the deadliest attack in Europe since July 2011, when Anders Behring Brevik killed 77 people in attacks on government buildings in Oslo, Norway, and at a youth camp on the island of Utoya.

cnn tonight jean casarez comparing terror attacks _00000515
Comparing Charlie Hebdo to other terror events 02:53
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But it won't stop Charlie Hebdo. Pelloux told CNN affiliate BFMTV that thousands of copies of the magazine will be published next Wednesday. Proceeds from the issue will go to victims' families, France's Le Monde newspaper reported.

'It was their only mistake'

Authorities have released few details on why they've zeroed in on the Kouachi brothers. But they have pointed to one key clue found inside a getaway car the gunmen apparently used: Said Kouachi's identification card. It was discovered by investigators as they combed the vehicle for clues after impounding it.

"It was their only mistake," said Dominique Rizet, BFMTV's police and justice consultant, reporting that discovering the ID had helped French investigators

Other evidence also points to the brothers' involvement, according to U.S. officials briefed by French intelligence.

Police hunting for the Kouachi brothers have searched residences in a number of towns, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

Who are the suspects?

An ISIS radio broadcast Thursday praised the attackers, calling them "brave jihadists." There was no mention of a claim of responsibility for the attack.

Officials were running the brothers' names through databases to look for connections with ISIS and al Qaeda.

A third suspect, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, turned himself in to police, a source close to the case told the AFP news agency. In French media and on social media, classmates of Mourad, who is in his final year of high school, said he was with them at school at the time of the attack.

Cazeneuve said that nine people overall have been detained in connection with the Charlie Hebdo attack.

But the Kouachi brothers remain on the run.

'Parisians will not be afraid'

The victims' names were splashed Thursday across newspapers as heroes for freedom of expression. "Liberty assassinated." "We are all Charlie Hebdo," the headlines blared.

They included two police officers, Stephane Charbonnier -- a cartoonist and the magazine's editor, known as "Charb" -- and three other well-known cartoonists known by the pen names Cabu, Wolinski and Tignous. Autopsies on the victims were underway Thursday, Cazeneuve said.

Flags flew at half-staff on public buildings and events were canceled Thursday, a national day of mourning. Crowds gathered in the rain in Paris in the victims' honor, many holding up media credentials and broke into applause as the silence ended. The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral tolled across the city.

"I can't remember such a day since 9/11," said Klugman, Paris' deputy mayor. "The country really is in a kind of shutdown in respect and memory of the 12 people killed."

The day earlier, thousands poured into streets in hordes in a show of solidarity, holding up pens and chanting, "We are Charlie!" Similar demonstrations took place in cities in addition to Paris, including Rome,

On Thursday, demonstrators once again vowed that nothing would silence them.

Standing in Paris' Place de la Republique, Lesley Martin sounded defiant as she waved an "I am Charlie" sign.

"I am not afraid," she said. "Tonight I'm here and, if tomorrow I have to be here, I don't care if anybody comes and just wants to do something really bad here. I'm not afraid to die."


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