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Elite French security forces deployed helicopters in a nighttime manhunt Thursday for the two brothers accused of slaughtering 12 people in an Islamist attack on a satirical weekly in Paris, AFP reported.

“The search will continue tonight with the help of five helicopters,” a police source told AFP in the tiny village of Villers-Cotterets, northeast of the capital, where the suspects earlier robbed a petrol station and abandoned their getaway car.

The fugitives were thought to be behind Wednesday’s bloodbath at Charlie Hebdo, the worst terrorist attack in France for half a century, which the gunmen said they carried out as revenge for the weekly’s repeated publication of cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad.

About 24 hours into the manhunt, they were identified after robbing the village petrol station, 80 kilometers from Paris, before fleeing again, possibly on foot and still armed with at least a Kalashnikov, police said.

Special police units rushed to the scene, backed by helicopters.

Moving methodically, officers in heavy black bulletproof vests went house to house, rifles at the ready, under the nervous eyes of local residents. An AFP reporter saw them storm one house. The fact that they didn’t find the suspects only added to the mounting tension.

“I live near the woods,” said village resident Roseline, a grandmother. “I’m afraid. Night is falling and they could be hiding nearby.”

A maximum security alert declared in the capital Wednesday was expanded to the region where the manhunt took place.