Cherif Kouachi was sentenced to 3 years in prison in 2008 on terrorism charges. Image: JSSNews

The French Interior Ministry has confirmed the identities of the three terrorist suspects wanted in connection with today’s attack on the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

The men were named as Saïd Kouachi, his brother Chérif Kouachi and Hamyd Mourad. The French government has not yet confirmed media reports that the three have been arrested. As reported earlier by The Algemeiner, the terrorists escaped the scene in a car which they abandoned outside a nearby kosher restaurant.

The Kouachi brothers are in their early 30s, hold French nationality, and reside in Paris. Mourad is reportedly homeless and 18 years old. Some media reports claimed that Mourad comes from the town of Reims, and speculated that the three terrorists may have been heading there.

French Jewish website JSS News published an image of a police warrant for the three terrorists that was shared by Pierre Martinet, a former French intelligence agent.

French newspaper Le Point reported that Chérif Kouachi was arrested in 2005 as he prepared to travel to the Syrian capital Damascus, and from there to Iraq, JSS News said. Kouachi, who was part of a jihadi network in France that dispatched fighters from France to serve with Al Qaeda in Iraq, was sentenced to three years in prison, with eighteen months suspended, in 2008.