Additional reporting by Hajer M'tiri
PARIS
Two suspects sought over the killing of 12 people in a gun attack on the headquarters of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo are being tracked by police helicopters driving along the RN2 highway between Paris and the French-Belgian border, French newspaper Le Figaro has reported.
The men, believed to be Franco-Algerians Said Kouachi, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32, were reported on Thursday to be heading towards Paris.
Earlier, the manager of a service station in Aisne, northeast of the French capital, reported seeing the heavily armed pair in a gray Renault Clio, according to French media.
The identities and photos of the pair had been released earlier by French police hunting the killers of the journalists, cartoonists and two police officers in the gun attack which shook France a day earlier.
French police would only disclose that the pair had "been located" and warned they were "armed and dangerous".
Suspect surrenders
A third suspect, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, earlier walked into a police station in Charleville-Mézières, about 230 kilometres (145 miles) northeast of Paris, and surrendered.
French weekly political magazine Le Point reported it had seen documents showing Kouachi had associated with terrorist groups for years and was an associate of French Algerian Djamel Beghal, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2005 for planning an attack against the U.S. embassy in France.
Several arrests were also made overnight on Wednesday after police carried out several raids in Reims, northeast of Paris, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls disclosed.
A surviving member of staff from Charlie Hebdo told the AFP news agency the publication would be published next week.
A minute of silence was held across France at midday on Thursday in remembrance of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack.
