France, Israel mourn; Man linked to Paris attacker held

French citizen Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, is pictured inside the courtroom before his trial in the town of Haskovo January 12, 2015. Bulgaria plans to extradite a Frenchman suspected of knowing or having been in touch with one of the two Islamist militants who shot dead 12 people at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's offices last week, prosecutors said on Monday. Using a European arrest warrant alleging that he had abducted his 3-year-old son and was likely to take him to Syria, Bulgarian police arrested Joachin on January 1 at a border checkpoint when he tried to cross into Turkey. Picture taken on January 12, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Amid the hunt for accomplices, Bulgarian authorities said Tuesday they have a Frenchman under arrest who is believed to have links to Cherif Kouachi, one of the Charlie Hebdo attackers.

Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, was arrested Jan. 1 as he tried to cross into Turkey, under two European arrest warrants, one citing his alleged links to a terrorist organization and a second for allegedly kidnapping his 3-year-old son and smuggling him out of the country, said Darina Slavova, the regional prosecutor for Bulgaria's southern province of Haskovo.

"He met with Kouachi several times at the end of December," Slavova said.

The Kouachi brothers and their friend, Amedy Coulibaly, the man who killed four hostages in the Paris grocery, died Friday in clashes with French police. All three claimed ties to Islamic extremists in the Middle East - the Kouachis to al-Qaida in Yemen and Coulibaly to the Islamic State group.

Two French police officials told The Associated Press that authorities were searching around Paris for the Mini Cooper registered to Hayat Boumeddiene, Coulibaly's widow, who Turkish officials say is now in Syria.

One of the police officials said the Paris terror cell consisted of about 10 members and that "five or six could still be at large," but he did not provide their names. The other official said the cell was made up of about eight people and included Boumeddiene.

One of the police officials also said Coulibaly apparently set off a car bomb Thursday in the town of Villejuif, but no one was injured and it did not receive significant media attention.

Video has emerged of Coulibaly explaining how the attacks in Paris would unfold. French police want to find the person or persons who shot and posted the video, which was edited after Friday's attacks.

Ties among the three attackers themselves date back to at least 2005, when Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi were jailed together.