PARIS (AP) — Police hunted for three heavily armed men with possible links to al-Qaida in the military-style, methodical killing of 12 people Wednesday at the office of a satirical newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.President Francois Hollande, visiting the scene of France’s deadliest such attack in more than half a century, called the assault on the weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo “an act of exceptional barbarism.”France raised its terror alert system to the maximum — Attack Alert — and bolstered security with more than 800 extra soldiers to guard media offices, places of worship, transport and other sensitive areas. Fears had been running high in France and elsewhere in Europe that jihadis returning from conflicts in Syria and Iraq would stage attacks at home.Two officials identified the suspects as French brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, whose nationality wasn’t immediately clear.Heavily armed police moved into the city of Reims, in France’s Champagne country east of Paris, apparently searching for the suspects. Video from BFM-TV showed police dressed in white apparently taking samples inside an apartment.