11 dead in shooting at French magazine known for Mohammed cartoons

At least 11 people were killed in a shooting at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper firebombed in the past after publishing cartoons joking about Muslim leaders.

Eleven people were killed and 10 people wounded, five of them seriously, in the shooting in eastern Paris, according to the Paris prefecture.

The news channel quoted a witness as saying he saw the incident from a building nearby in the heart of the French capital.

French President Francois Hollande will go to the scene of the shooting and then hold an emergency government meeting, a source at his office said on Wednesday.

"About a half an hour ago two black-hooded men entered the building with Kalashnikovs (guns)," Benoit Bringer told the station. "A few minutes later we heard lots of shots," he said, adding that the men were then seen fleeing the building.

A police official, Luc Poignant, said he was aware of one journalist dead and several injured, including three police officers.

"It's carnage," Poignant told BFM TV.

A firebomb attack gutted the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo in November 2011 after it put an image of the Prophet Mohammad on its cover.

In 2012 the magazine published a series of satirical cartoons of Mohammed, some of which showed the prophet in the nude.  - TimesLIVE