A policewoman was killed and a companion badly wounded in a shootout in Paris that might be related to the terrorist attack yesterday that killed 12 people in the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.  Police are seeking two brothers in that attack.

Authorities are being tight-lipped about the possible connection to the murders because it may be an entirely separate lone wolf attack.

Reuters:

Police sources could not immediately confirm a link with the killings at Charlie Hebdo weekly newspaper which marked the worst attack on French soil for decades and which national leaders and allied states described as an assault on democracy.

Montrouge mayor Pierre Brossollette said the policewoman and a colleague went to the site to deal with a traffic accident. A car stopped and a man got out and shot at them before fleeing.

Witnesses said the shooter fled in a Renault Clio car. Police sources said he had been wearing a bullet-proof vest and had a handgun and assault rifle. However, one police officer at the scene told Reuters the man did not appear to fit the bill of the Charlie Hebdo shooters.

Live French television showed around a dozen police dressed in protective wear and helmets massed outside a building near the scene of the shoot-out.

The new incident came as France began a day of mourning for the journalists of Charlie Hebdo weekly and police officers shot dead on morning by black-hooded gunmen using Kalashnikov assault rifles. French tricolor flags flew at half mast.

The killing of the policewoman was carried out with the same ruthless efficiency as the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office.

The brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, are still at large.  One suspect, Mourad Hamyd, surrendered to authorities earlier.  It is not known if he is one of the shooters at the Charlie Hebdo offices.

The brothers carjacked a Renault Clio after the attack yesterday, and that car may have been involved in a gas station robbery in northern France:

The two main suspects in the Islamist attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris are said to have robbed a service station in the north of France.

They stole food and petrol, firing shots as they struck at the roadside stop near Villers-Cotterets in the Aisne region, French media report.

France has observed a minute's silence for the 12 people killed at the office of the satirical magazine.

Earlier in the day, a gunman shot dead a policewoman in southern Paris.

A second person was seriously injured in the attack in the suburb of Montrouge, after which the gunman fled.

It is unclear if the attack is related to the pursuit of prime suspects Cherif and Said Kouachi.

According to the manager of the service station that was robbed on the RN2 road in Aisne at about 10:30 (09:30 GMT), the attackers fit the description of the two men, and were heavily armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

They are said to have driven off in the direction of Paris in a Renault Clio car, apparently the same vehicle hijacked in Paris soon after the Charlie Hebdo attack.

Strange terrorists who mow down 12 people at a newspaper office and then hijack a car, leaving the driver alive.  They also apparently left the gas station clerk alive as well.  Their attack and escape appear to have been well-thought out, with the kind of military efficiency you would expect from al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.

All of Europe is very concerned that the attack marks a new phase in jihad against the West.  The attacks will also give impetus to the anti-Islamization rallies that have sprung up all over Europe.