Search for Suspected Charlie Hebdo Killers Underway Northeast of Paris

French police has launched a large-scale operation north-east of Paris on Thursday to find two fugitive brothers suspected of being the main perpetrators of the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo magazine.

According to the BBC, police were conducting house-to-house searches for the two men, Cherif Kouachi and Said Kouachi, in the village of  Longport, some 80 km. northeast of Paris, which has been sealed off.

Areas near the town of Villers-Cotterets, north-east of Paris in the Picardy region, where the two brothers reportedly robbed a petrol station, have also been searched.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls put the Picardy region on the highest alert level. The Ile-de-France region, including Paris, has been placed under the same level of alert earlier.

According to French authorities,there is no evidence of a link between Wednesday'sshooting at the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a second gun attack in Paris on Thursday.

A female police officer was killed and a municipal official was seriously wounded in that shooting in the southern suburb of Montrouge, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

One person was arrested in that incident, Paris Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman said, but it is not known yet whether the shooter is still at large.

The Eiffel Tower, the iconic landmark of Paris, went dark at 8 pm (1900 GMT) in remembrance of the victims of Wednesday's attack.