Charlie Hebdo attack: What we know and don’t know

Blasts and gunshots were heard from both locations Friday afternoon.

Twelve people were killed in Wednesday’s attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, which has prompted widespread shock and condemnation. Separately, a policewoman was killed in a shooting Thursday in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge.

Authorities are scrambling to respond to the incidents and officials are sharing some of the information with reporters.

Here’s a summary of what we know and don’t know at this point:

THE LATEST — PARIS

What we know: A shooting and hostage-taking situation at a kosher grocery store in Porte de Vincennes, a neighborhood in eastern Paris, is over after a police operation.

Multiple blasts and gunshots were heard from the area soon after 5 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET) and police were then seen leading people from the store.

Police at the scene of the supermarket siege shouted “get down!” and “we’ve got him” amid gunfire at the site, footage from CNN affiliate BFMTV showed.

Alliance Police Union spokesman Pascal Disand told CNN that hostage-taker Amedy Coulibaly, a suspect in the Montrouge shooting, was killed in the operation at the supermarket. He said some police were injured. At least 10 hostages managed to escape, he said.

Four people died in the incident, President Francois Hollande said in a televised address. He didn’t say whether that included Coulibaly, but BFMTV reported five people had died at the supermarket, including Coulibaly.

Disand earlier said Coulibaly, 32, had demanded the release of Cherif and Said Kouachi, involved in the standoff with police outside Paris. The Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly were part of the same jihadist groups, Disand said.

Hollande called the incident at a kosher market an “anti-Semitic attack.”

Eleven people were wounded in the attack, including four in serious condition.

What we don’t know: All the victims have been identified, but over time, more stories of these lives cut tragically short by terrorism are likely to emerge.

THE MOTIVE

What we know: During the attack, the gunmen said, “Allahu akbar” — which translates to “God is great” — and that they were avenging the Prophet Mohammed, the prosecutor told reporters.

Charlie Hebdo has a controversial history of depicting Mohammed, often in an unfavorable light, which has angered many Muslims around the world. Earlier cartoons depicting Mohammed spurred protests and the burning of the magazine’s office three years ago.

Its last tweet before Wednesday’s attack featured a cartoon of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi offering festive greetings with the words, “And, above all, health!”

Why Islam forbids images of Mohammed

What we don’t know: The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are mapping the suspects’ relationships for clues, including digital records. They are running the suspects’ names through databases and looking for connections with ISIS and al Qaeda. Investigators are trying to establish whether the Paris shooting was part of a coordinated strategy.

An ISIS radio broadcast Thursday praised the attackers, calling them “brave jihadists.” But the broadcast did not say whether the two had any connection to the militant group.

CNN’s Deborah Feyerick, Tim Lister, Atika Shubert, Frederik Pleitgen, Sandrine Amiel, Mariano Castillo, Greg Botelho, Richard Allen Greene, Barbara Starr, Ray Sanchez, Nick Paton Walsh, Saskya Vandoorne, Jim Sciutto and Evan Perez contributed to this report.

CNN