French authorities have identified and arrested suspects who launched a horrific terror attack at a satirical magazine that killed 12 people on Wednesday, reports say.
One of the gunmen was killed and two were taken into custody, U.S. officials said Wednesday evening according to NBC News.
Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, both Frenchmen in their 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad of unknown nationality have been identified as the men who allegedly carried out the attack French President Francois Hollande called an act "of exceptional barbarism," the Associated Press reported.
It was not immediately clear who was killed and which two are in custody.
Armed with AK-47s, the black-clad assailants stormed the Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and killed a receptionist before killing 10 staff members, including four cartoonists, in the middle of an editorial meeting on the second floor. The gunmen escaped within a matter of minutes, killing a police officer before fleeing the scene.
They were reportedly heard shouting "Allahu Akbar" (usually translated as "God is greatest") during the noon attack.
Investigators have learned that Algerian-born Cherif Kouachi was convicted in 2008 on terrorism charges for supplying men to Iraq's insurgency, the AP reported. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
At Cherif's 2008 trial, prosecutors said he was part of a group named the 19th Arrondissement Network that recruited French Muslims and trained them with weapons to fight for al-Qaeda in Iraq, USA Today reported. The group planned to travel to Iraq through Syria, but Cherif was arrested in January 2005 a few days before the alleged trip to Syria.
Cherif said at his 2008 trial that his anger over TV images of Iraqi prisoners being tortured at the U.S. prison Abu Ghraib was his motivation, the AP reported.
Police said the men have ties to a Yemeni terrorist group. At least one of the gunmen claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda, which along with the Islamic State has previously threatened to attack France. Intelligence officials said the men could have received specialized training due to the coordinated nature of the brutal killings.
"It's possible that they were trained in Yemen or anywhere on the Arabian Peninsula," Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical analysis at Stratfor, a global intelligence firm, told Fox News.
In the U.S., President Barack Obama condemned the worst terror attack to strike French soil in half a century.
"France, and the great city of Paris where this outrageous attack took place, offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful vision of these killers," Obama said in a statement. "We are in touch with French officials and I have directed my Administration to provide any assistance needed to help bring these terrorists to justice."
