'Seven detained' as police hunt brothers after Charlie Hebdo attack

Police carry out a body from the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Jan. 7. AFP Photo

Seven people have been detained in the hunt for brothers suspected of gunning down 12 people in an Islamist assault on a satirical weekly, a judicial source said Jan. 8.

Confirming earlier comments by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, the source, who refused to be named, said men and women close to the two brothers were currently being questioned by police, without saying where they had been detained.

Valls, meanwhile, told RTL radio that the two suspects - who are still on the run - were known to intelligence services and were "no doubt" being followed before Wednesday's attack.

Two brothers were spotted on early Jan. 8 and are armed, sources close to the manhunt said.
      
The manager of a petrol station near Villers-Cotteret in the northern Aisne region "recognized the two men suspected of having participated in the attack against Charlie Hebdo", the source said.

The masked, black-clad gunmen burst into the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine on Wednesday morning, killing some of France's most outspoken journalists and two policemen, before jumping into a car and escaping.

Police have issued arrest warrants for Cherif Kouachi, 32, a known jihadist convicted in 2008 for involvement in a network sending fighters to Iraq, and his 34-year-old brother Said. Both were born in Paris.

The youngest of three individuals believed to be behind the attack turned himself into police earlier Jan. 8, an official at the Paris prosecutor's office said. He was identified as Hamyd Mourad, born in 1996.
An official at the Paris prosecutor's office said he turned himself in at a police station in Charleville-Mzires, some 230 kilometres northeast of Paris near the Belgium border. BFM TV, citing unidentified sources, said...

Continue reading on: