Gunmen open fire, shoot down 10 journalists, 2 policemen in Charlie Hebdo office in Paris

Paris: Unknown gunmen on Wednesday opened fire and shot down at least 10 journalists and two policemen in Charlie Hebdo's Paris office. The Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical weekly newspaper.

The 10 deceased journalists include magazine's chief editor and the cartoonist Charb who was included in Al-Qaida's wanted list in 2013 for producing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

As the gunmen left the scene, they exchanged fire with police officers, killing one, before fleeing in a car. The car was later found in the nearby 19th district, in north-eastern Paris. The attackers are still on the run.

French President Francois Hollande said the attack on the Charlie Hebdo weekly, which has frequently drawn condemnation from Muslims, is "a terrorist attack, without a doubt," and said several other attacks have been thwarted in France "in recent weeks."

France raised its alert to the highest level, and reinforced security at houses of worship, stores, media offices and transportation. Top government officials were holding an emergency meeting.

Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre confirmed 12 people were killed.

Luc Poignant, an official of the SBP police union, said the attackers escaped in two vehicles. A witness, Benoit Bringer, told the iTele network he saw multiple masked men armed with automatic weapons at the newspaper's office in central Paris.

The last tweet published on Charlie Hebdo's feed before the deadly attack was a spoof of the leader of the Islamic State militant group Al-Baghdadi giving a New Year's greeting.

The extremist Islamic State group has threatened to attack France, and minutes before the attack Charlie Hebdo had tweeted a satirical cartoon of that extremist group's leader giving New Year's wishes. Charlie Hebdo has been repeatedly threatened for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, among other controversial sketches, and its offices were firebombed in 2011.

The 2011 firebombing came after a spoof issue featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on its cover. Nearly a year later, the publication again published crude Muhammad caricatures, drawing denunciations around the Muslim world.

The world leaders have condemned the attack and assured all support to France.

Wednesday's attack comes the same day of the release of a book by a celebrated French novelist depicting France's election of its first Muslim president, Hollande had been due to meet with the country's top religious officials later in the day.

France's Interior Ministry has opened up a hotline for any eye-witnesses that can provide information about Wednesday's deadly attack 08 05 02 17 17 (calling from France).

(With inputs from agencies)####Tweet, by Le Monde journalist Elise Barthet, appears to show two gunmen pointing their weapons at a police car.

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