Twelve dead in shooting at Paris satirical magazine’s office

PARIS - Twelve people were killed today at the Paris headquarters of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Authorities claim at least two gunmen armed with assault rifles attacked the magazine's offices, while the editorial team was having its weekly meeting. Victims include Jean Cabut, aka Cabu, and Stephane Charbonnier, aka Charb, two of France's best-known and most talented comic strip artists and caricaturists.

French President Francois Hollande visited the crime scene and described the shooting as an 'terrorist attack,” and 'an exceptional act of barbarism committed against a newspaper.”

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron reacted with a tweet saying, 'We stand united with the French people in our opposition to all forms of terrorism & stand squarely for free speech and democracy.”

A fierce advocate for free speech, Charlie Hebdo was founded in 1969 and is known for its satirical, and often controversial, cartoons.

In 2006, it sparked a large controversy following the publication of 12 caricatures of Prophet Muhammad. Then in 2011, the magazine was firebombed after publishing a special issue titled Charia Hebdo with a caricature of Prophet Muhammad on the cover. Two years later, Charlie Hebdo published a comic book biography of Islam's founder.

The magazine's most recent tweet displayed a cartoon of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State's driving force.

Some eyewitnesses said several men carrying Kalashnikovs took part in the massacre and shouted 'Allaou Akbar.”

The gunmen have escaped and are now on the run. French TV channels interrupted their programing and sent reporters on the ground to provide nonstop coverage.

This attack is reportedly the deadliest one perpetrated in France since 1835. Mass shootings are rare in France, which boasts strict gun control laws.

It's not the first time, however, that a print publication gets assaulted. In 2013, Liberation, a left-wing national newspaper, was attacked by a lone gunman who critically-injured one person. The suspect, Abdelhakim Dekhar, who was arrested later that year, is also accused of threatening a senior editor at news channel BFMTV.

The Charlie Hebdo carnage will likely fuel the ambient racism and Islamophobia which have been on the rise in France. It also will certainly boost the popularity of Far-right (Front national) party leader Marine Le Pen, who is expected to run for President in 2017.