Car chase underway north of Paris as police chase Charlie Hebdo suspects

Shots have been fired after two suspects in the massacre at satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead stole a car and drove off.

An operation to detain the Charlie Hebdo massacre suspects is underway about 60 miles north east of Paris, France’s interior minister has said.

Brothers Said, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32, who have al-Qaida sympathies, stole a Peugeot this morning in the town of Montagny Sainte Felicite, about 30 miles north east of Paris.

Police Swat teams swarmed a region north of Paris, fearing a second strike by the suspects, who are described in a nationwide notice as "armed and dangerous".

A car chase is underway near Charles de Gaulle Airport.

One brother was convicted of terrorism charges in 2008, and survivors of the bloody assault on Charlie Hebdo said the attackers claimed allegiance to al Qaida in Yemen.

The weekly newspaper had been repeatedly threatened – and its offices were firebombed in 2011 – after satirising Islam and depicting the prophet Muhammad in caricature.

The country’s maximum terror alert was extended from Paris to the northern Picardy region, focusing on towns that might be safe havens for Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34.

French prime minister Manuel Valls said both men were known to intelligence services.

A senior US official said yesterday that the elder Kouachi had travelled to Yemen, although it was unclear whether he was there to join extremist groups such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based there.

The younger brother, Cherif, was convicted of terrorism charges in 2008 for his links to a network sending jihadis to fight American forces in Iraq.

French president Francois Hollande called for tolerance after the country’s worst terrorist attack in decades.

“France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty – and thus of resistance – breathed freely,” Mr Hollande said.

Nine people, members of the brothers’ entourage, have been detained for questioning in several regions. In all, 90 people, many of them witnesses to the grisly assault on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, were questioned for information on the attackers, French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

The minister confirmed reports that the men were identified by the elder brother’s ID card, left in an abandoned getaway car, a slip that contrasted with the seeming professionalism of the attack.

A third suspect, 18-year-old Mourad Hamyd, surrendered at a police station on Wednesday evening after hearing his name linked to the attacks. His relationship to the Kouachi brothers was unclear.

The Kouachi brothers – born in Paris to Algerian parents – were well-known to French counter-terrorism authorities. Cherif Kouachi, a former pizza deliveryman, had appeared in a 2005 French TV documentary on Islamic extremism.

Charlie Hebdo had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam, although it also satirised other religions and political figures. The weekly paper had caricatured the prophet Muhammad, and a sketch of Islamic State’s leader was the last tweet sent out by the irreverent newspaper, minutes before the attack. Nothing has been tweeted since.

Eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the attack.

Charlie Hebdo plans a special edition next week, produced in the offices of another paper.

Editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb, who was among those killed, “symbolised secularism ... the combat against fundamentalism,” his companion, Jeannette Bougrab said.

“He was ready to die for his ideas,” she said.