PARIS — A French police official says a pair of brothers suspected in the storming of a satirical newspaper appear to have taken a hostage.
Xavier Castaing, chief spokesman for Paris regional police, spoke as a massive operation unfolded Friday in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, near Charles de Gaulle airport.
Helicopters and hundreds of security forces backed by ambulances streamed to the town, where the brothers were believed to be holed up.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed the operation to seize the armed pair, who are suspected in the bloody storming of Charlie Hebdo newspaper.
Twelve people died in the central Paris attack on Wednesday.
Shots were fired as the brothers stole a car in the early morning hours, said a French security official.
Thousands of French security forces have mobilized to find Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices on Wednesday.
According to a security official, the brothers stole a Peugeot amid gunfire in the town of Montagny Sainte Felicite, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Paris.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a situation that was still developing.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said both brothers were known to intelligence services.
One brother was convicted of terrorism charges in 2008. 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 spoofing Islam and depicting the Prophet Muhammad in caricature.
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 in Syria - headed there, returned or dead. Both the Islamic State group and al-Qaida have threatened France - home to Western Europe's largest Muslim population.
The French suspect in a deadly 2014 attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium had returned from fighting with extremists in Syria; and the man who rampaged in southern France in 2012, killing three soldiers and four people at a Jewish school, received paramilitary training in Pakistan.
Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten, Elaine Ganley and Sylvie Corbet in Paris; and Ken Dilanian in Washington contributed to this report.
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