ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Twelve people were killed in Paris today when gunmen stormed the offices of a satirical weekly newspaper. The masked men shouted Islamist slogans as they killed the leading cartoonists at the magazine and the police guarding them. There's now a national manhunt for the perpetrators of the worst terrorist attack in France in decades. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley sends this report.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: A journalist's cell phone captured the sound of the killing rampage this morning at 11:30 a.m. Paris time. That's when the masked gunmen entered the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo. They shot a police guard before bursting into an editorial meeting and spraying the room with automatic gunfire.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
BEARDSLEY: The men then left the building and wounded a policeman. Then one gunman calmly walked up and shot the officer in the head. The scene was filmed by a witness in a nearby apartment building. The men can be heard shouting, we have avenged the profit. We have killed Charlie Hebdo. Then they got in their car and drove off. French president Francois Hollande soon joined the hundreds of police and paramedics at the scene of the attack.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: (Through interpreter) Journalists and policemen have been cowardly assassinated by barbarians, said Hollande. France's is in shock today, but we will be united and act with firmness.
BEARDSLEY: The often crude but clever magazine poked fun at all religions. But it was its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad that so angered Muslim fundamentalists. In 2007, Charlie Hebdo received death threats for republishing Danish cartoons of the Prophet. And in 2011, its offices were firebombed after it published more caricatures of Muhammad. Speaking at the time, Charlie Hebdo's editor, Stephane Charbonnier, was defiant.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STEPHANE CHARBONNIER: (Through interpreter) I could never live in a country where I couldn't laugh at certain subjects because there was a mortal risk or a judicial risk. No, I'd rather die.
BEARDSLEY: Charbonnier was one of those killed today. France has Western Europe's largest Muslim population, and the community's leaders were among the first to condemn today's attack. Dalil Boubakeur is Imam of Paris' largest mosque.
IMAM DALIL BOUBAKEUR: (Through interpreter) These attacks are not only happening in France and in Europe, but in Muslim countries. And we Muslims refuse any association with these terrorists and religious radicals.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHANTING)
BEARDSLEY: Tonight across France, tens and thousands of people gathered in silent vigils. At Paris' Place de la Republique, people held signs that said Je suis Charlie or I am Charlie and chanted we are all Charlie. Thirty-year-old Adrien Brunetti wanted to show his support for the slain cartoonists. He carried pictures of some of their famous cartoons.
ADRIEN BRUNETTI: We are here, like, to just gather, show our deep respect for the work they have done and for being together. And I am part of the ones that fear that they will be like stigmatization of Muslim people in France. And I don't want that to happen so that's why, also, I'm here tonight.
BEARDSLEY: As world leaders express their condemnation of today's attack, the terror alert in the Paris region was raised to its highest level. Police are said to be looking for three French nationals including two brothers in connection with the killings. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.