12 Killed in Attack at Paris Office of Charlie Hebdo

Posted on January 7, 2015

12 people have been killed in an attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The attack took place at the magazine's regional office in Paris. The publication was among those that republished cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammed in 2005. The cartoons were originally published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The magazine also published some of its own Muhammed cartoons.

The gunmen entered the building with CNN reports that the gunmen Kalashnikov submachine guns and opened fire. BBC News reports that witness say the gunmen shouted "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad" after the attack. They gunmen were able to escape after an exchange of gunfire with police following the shooting and are on the loose.

Journalists and police are among the victims of the massacre. Four cartoonists are reported dead. The magazine's chief editor Stephane Charbonnier was killed.

This video contains brief footage of the scene on the street near where the attack took place:

The controversial Muhammed cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten are considered blasphemous by some Muslims. The 2005 publication of the cartoons in the Danish newspaper resulted in fatwas and riots in some countries. One of the Danish cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, was attacked by a Somali man wielding an axe in 2010. The office of Charlie Hebdo was firebombed in 2010.

Charlie Hebdo tweeted a cartoon mocking ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi shortly before the attack.