DHAKA: At least 12 people were killed when gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-launcher opened fire in the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday.

Sources close to the investigation said, reports The Straits Times.

Following the incident, the government raised its alert level to the highest possible in the greater Paris region.

Ten members of Charlie Hebdo’s staff were killed in the attack, as well as two police officers, a police spokesman said.

French president Francois Hollande said it is a terror attack ‘of exceptional barbarity’ and that ‘several terrorist attacks were thwarted in recent weeks’, The Telegraph reported.

‘We need to show we are a united country,’ he was quoted by The Guardian as saying. ‘We will fight these threats and we will punish the attackers.’

Paris deputy mayor Bruno Julliard earlier said, ‘six people are seriously injured’, including a policeman. It was not clear whether these now figured among the dead.

Hollande arrived at the scene of the shooting after rushing there and calling an emergency cabinet meeting, the presidency said.

A source close to the investigation said two men ‘armed with a Kalashnikov and a rocket-launcher’ stormed the building in central Paris and ‘fire was exchanged with security forces’.

The source said gunmen had hijacked a car and knocked over a pedestrian as he sped away.

This tweet, by Le Monde journalist Elise Barthet, appears to show two gunmen pointing their weapons at a police car:

** 11 killed in Paris gun attack

BDST: 1903 HRS, JAN 07, 2015