French Police Close In on #CharlieHebdo Suspects

At Telegraph UK, "Paris Charlie Hebdo attack: Police appear to be closing in on Said and Cherif Kouachi":

Several hundred heavily armed riot officers and special forces circling a large forest where the two brothers are believed to be.

Police appeared to be closing on Thursday night on the French brothers responsible for Wednesday’s terrorist attack, as several hundred heavily armed riot officers and special forces began circling a large forest in the east of the country.

A helicopter was flying over the Forêt de Retz, an ancient woodland that covers an area greater than Paris.

A convoy of police had pulled up at a large farmhouse outside the village of Longpont, near Reims, and were seen preparing to scour the area. Local residents were warned to stay indoors.

Thursday's operation appeared to be the beginning of the end of the massive manhunt, which has seen 88,000 police deployed to find the culprits behind the worst terrorist attack in France in 50 years.

The lights of the Eiffel Tower were turned off on Thursday night, in memory of the victims, and candles continued to blaze at a series of spontaneous shrines across the French capital, as the country struggled to come to terms with what some commentators described as “France’s September 11”.

The fugitives, Said Kouachi, 34, and his 32-year-old brother Chérif, were wanted for the murder of 12 people at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine known for its provocative cartoons.

They fled by car and were last seen on Wednesday night in Pantin, a suburb in the north-east of Paris, where they abandoned their getaway vehicle and hijacked another.

The brothers were identified thanks to an identity card left in their getaway car, and their names were widely spread in the media, alongside that of Hamyd Mourad, Said’s 18-year-old brother-in-law.

Jihadi flags and petrol bombs were said to have been found in the car. On Thursday night it was becoming apparent that Chérif had extensive contacts with known jihadis, and had himself been in prison on terrorism charges.

Among those in his circle were members of the notorious Buttes-Chaumont network, which was based in Paris’s 19th arrondissement and saw dozens of young men recruited in the early 2000s to fight in Iraq.

One of the network’s masterminds, Salim Benghalem, has been named by the US state department as among its 10 most wanted terrorists, and is described as currently acting as an “executioner” for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Chérif had been living for several years in Gennevilliers, a suburb to the north-west of Paris, and on Wednesday evening police raided his flat, with forensic detectives combing the site...

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