Timeline of the Charlie Hebdo attack and manhunt

Key developments since Wednesday’s terror attack in which 12 were killed, France’s deadliest attack in half a century

A French SWAT team operating in the Long Port suburb of Paris one day after the terror attack at the office of Charlie Hebdo (photo credit: AP Photo: Bob Edme)
A French SWAT team operating in the Long Port suburb of Paris one day after the terror attack at the office of Charlie Hebdo (photo credit: AP Photo: Bob Edme)

PARIS, France — A snapshot of developments since Wednesday’s attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people died and 11 were injured, in the deadliest attack in France in half a century.

 

WEDNESDAY, January 7

– Two men armed with Kalashnikov rifles storm the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo weekly at around 11:30 a.m. (10:30 GMT).

– They kill a cleaning man initially identified as a receptionist before shooting eight journalists, a police officer protecting cartoonist Charb, and a visitor.

– The attackers climb into a black Citroen and exchange fire with police vehicles, and then coldly execute an injured police officer sprawled on the sidewalk.

– Following a collision, they abandon their vehicle, hijack another, and flee northwards from Paris, where police lose their trail.

– France raises its alert status for Paris and northern regions to the highest level of “Attack alert.”

– Anti-terrorist police raid sites in the northeastern towns of Reims and Charleville-Mezieres, acting on forensic evidence and an identity document found in the abandoned car.

– Police say they are hunting three men, including two brothers: Cherif and Said Kouachi, 34 and 32 respectively.

– A third man suspected of helping the brothers then turns himself in.

 

THURSDAY, January 8

– A policewoman is shot by a man just outside Paris and dies. Authorities later determine there is no link with the Charlie Hebdo attack.

– The Charlie Hebdo suspects rob a gas station in the northern Aisne region; the owner then calls police.

– Investigators find a dozen Molotov cocktails and two jihadist flags in the getaway car used in the massacre.

– Thousands of security personnel are deployed, many sent to comb the area where the two men were last seen.

– A US official says the Kouachi brothers have been “on our watch list for years” and that Said had spent a few months training with al-Qaeda in Yemen.

 

FRIDAY, January 9

– Shots are fired during a car chase on the National 2 highway north of Paris with two suspects who might be the Kouachi brothers, a police source says.

– The men hijack a car from a woman who said she recognized them as Cherif and Said Kouachi, a police source says.

– One person is taken hostage at a printing business near Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris, which is surrounded by police.

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