PARIS — Police SWAT teams backed by helicopters tracked two heavily armed brothers with al-Qaeda sympathies suspected in the newsroom massacre of a satirical French weekly that spoofed Islam, homing in Thursday on a region north of Paris.
Authorities fear a second strike by the suspects, who U.S. counterterrorism officials said were on the U.S. no-fly list, and distributed their portraits with the notice “armed and dangerous.” More than 88,000 security forces were deployed on the streets of France.
They also extended France’s maximum terrorism alert from Paris to the northern Picardie region, focusing on several towns that might be possible safe havens for the two — Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34.
A senior U.S. official said Thursday the elder Kouachi had traveled to Yemen, although it was unclear whether he was there to join extremist groups like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based there. Witnesses said the attackers claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda in Yemen during the bloody attack Wednesday.
The worst spasm of terror violence in more than a half-century stunned France. The lights of the Eiffel Tower went out Thursday night in a tribute to the dead from the elegant iron lady that symbolizes France to the world. At noon, the Paris Metro came to a standstill and a crowd fell silent near the Notre Dame Cathedral.
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,” Hollande said.
In Washington, President Barack Obama paid his respects at the French Embassy declaring “terror is no match for freedom,” and filling nearly a page in a condolence book.
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 assault on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, were questioned for information on the attackers, said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve in a statement.
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 Wednesday evening after hearing his name linked to the attacks. His relationship to the Kouachi brothers was unclear.
The Kouachi brothers — the Paris-born offspring of Algerian parents — were well-known to French counterterrorism authorities. Cherif Kouachi, a former pizza deliveryman, had appeared in a 2005 French TV documentary on Islamic extremism and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 for trying to join with fighters battling in Iraq.
Eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the attack, and 11 people were wounded, four of them critically. The publication had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam, although it also satirized other religions and political figures.
Charlie Hebdo had caricatured the prophet Muhammad. A caricature of the Islamic State’s leader was the last tweet sent out by the irreverent newspaper, minutes before the attack. Its feed has gone silent.
Charlie Hebdo planned a special edition next week, housed in the offices of another paper.
“The paper will continue because they haven’t won,” said Patrick Pelloux, a Charlie Hebdo columnist, tearfully to iTele TV.
Police searched an apartment in Reims, in the Champagne region, where the interior minister said Said Kouachi lived, with technicians gathering samples.
The hunt moved farther north after a report that two men resembling the suspects robbed a gas station in Villers-Cotterets early Thursday. The focus then enlarged to Crepy-en-Val ois, where heavily armed security forces with air cover and a giant black rapid intervention truck moved through rural streets and among old stone buildings.
Authorities around Europe have warned of the threat posed by the return of Western jihadis trained in warfare. France counts at least 1,200 citizens in the war zone, headed there, returned or dead, and officials have said France is a preferred target.
The Islamic State and al-Qaeda have issued threats to France — home to Western Europe’s largest Muslim population.
