Police: 12 Dead in Shooting at Satirical Newspaper in Paris

Update 7:30 a.m.  Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre says 12 people are now confirmed killed.

Masked gunmen stormed the offices of a French satirical newspaper Wednesday, killing 11 people before escaping, police and a witness said. The weekly has previously drawn condemnation from Muslims.

Xavier Castaing, head of communications for the Paris police prefecture, confirmed the deaths in the shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly that been repeatedly threatened for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, among other controversial sketches.

Luc Poignant, an official of the SBP police union, said the attackers escaped in two vehicles.

French President Francois Hollande said the attack on the paper "a terrorist attack, without a doubt," and said several other attacks have been thwarted in France "in recent weeks."

A witness to the attack told the iTele network, that he saw multiple masked men armed with automatic weapons at the newspaper.

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's 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.

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.