On
this date, January 9, 2015, two Al-Qaeda Brothers, Chérif
and Saïd Kouachi, were shot dead, after being involved in the 2015 Charlie Hebdo Shooting. I will post
information about these two terrorists from Wikipedia.
Chérif
and Saïd Kouachi
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Born
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Chérif: 29 November 1982
Saïd: 7 September 1980 10th ARR, Paris, France |
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Died
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9 January 2015 (aged 32 and 34)
Dammartin-en-Goële, France |
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Cause of
death
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Gunshot wounds
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Nationality
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French
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Killings
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Date
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7–9 January 2015
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Location(s)
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Charlie Hebdo
offices
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Target(s)
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Charlie
Hebdo staff
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Killed
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12
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Injured
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11
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Weapons
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Chérif and Saïd Kouachi
Police
quickly identified brothers Saïd Kouachi (French pronunciation: [sa.id kua.ʃi]; 7 September 1980 – 9 January 2015)
and Chérif Kouachi ([ʃe.ʁif]; 29 November 1982 – 9
January 2015) as the main suspects. French citizens born in Paris to Algerian
immigrants, the brothers were orphaned at a young age after their mother's
apparent suicide and placed in a foster home in Rennes. After two years, they were moved to
an orphanage in Corrèze in 1994, along
with a younger brother and an older sister. The brothers moved to Paris around
2000.
Chérif,
also known as Abu Issen, was part of an informal gang that met in the Parc des Buttes
Chaumont in Paris to perform military-style training exercises and
sent would-be jihadists to fight for al-Qaeda
in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
Chérif was arrested at age 22 in January 2005 when he and another man were
about to leave for Syria, at the time a gateway for jihadists
wishing to fight US troops in Iraq. He went to Fleury-Mérogis
Prison, where he met Amedy Coulibaly. In prison, they found a
mentor, Djamel Beghal,
who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2001 for his part in a plot to bomb
the US embassy in Paris. Beghal had once been a regular worshiper at
Finsbury Park
Mosque in London and a disciple of the radical preachers Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada.
Upon
leaving prison, Chérif Kouachi married and got a job in a fish market on the
outskirts of Paris. He became a student of Farid Benyettou, a radical Muslim
preacher at the Addawa Mosque in the 19th
arrondissement of Paris. Kouachi wanted to attack Jewish targets in
France, but Benyettou told him that France, unlike Iraq, was not "a land
of jihad".
On
28 March 2008, Chérif was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to three years
in prison, with 18 months suspended,
for having assisted in sending fighters to militant Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group in Iraq, and for being part of a group that solicited
young French Muslims to fight with Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He
said outrage at the torture of inmates by the US Army at Baghdad Central
Prison in Abu Ghraib
inspired him to help Iraq's insurgency.
French
judicial documents state Amedy Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi travelled with
their wives in 2010 to central France to visit Djamel Beghal. In a police
interview in 2010, Coulibaly identified Chérif as a friend he had met in prison
and said they saw each other frequently. In 2010, the Kouachi brothers were
named in connection with a plot to break out from jail another Islamist, Smaïn
Aït Ali Belkacem. For lack of evidence, they were not prosecuted. Belkacem was
one of those responsible for the 1995
Paris Métro and RER bombings that killed eight people.
From
2009 to 2010, Saïd Kouachi visited Yemen on a student visa to study at the San'a
Institute for the Arabic Language. There, according to a Yemeni
reporter who interviewed Saïd, he met and befriended Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab, the perpetrator of the attempted bombing of Northwest
Airlines Flight 253 later in 2009. Also according to the reporter,
the two shared an apartment for "one or two weeks".
In
2011, Saïd returned to Yemen for a number of months and trained with al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula militants. According to a senior Yemeni
intelligence source, he met al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki in the
southern province of Shabwa. Chérif Kouachi
told BFM TV that he had been funded by a network loyal to Anwar al-Awlaki, who
was killed by a drone strike in 2011 in Yemen. According to US officials, the
US provided France with intelligence in 2011 showing the brothers received
training in Yemen. French authorities monitored them until the spring of 2014.
During the time leading to the Charlie Hebdo attack, Saïd lived with his
wife and children in a block of flats in Reims.
Neighbours described him as solitary.
The
weapons used in the attack were supplied via the Brussels underworld. According to the Belgian press,
a criminal sold Amedy Coulibaly the rocket-propelled grenade launcher and
Kalashnikov assault rifles that the Kouachi brothers used.
In
an interview between Chérif Kouachi and Igor Sahiri, one of France's BFMTV
journalists, Chérif stated that "We are not
killers. We are defenders of the prophet, we don’t kill women. We kill no one.
We defend the prophet. If someone offends the prophet then there is no problem,
we can kill him. We don’t kill women. We are not like you. You are the ones
killing women and children in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This isn’t us. We
have an honour code in Islam."
Suspected Charlie Hebdo attack driver
The
police initially identified the 18-year-old brother-in-law of Chérif Kouachi, a
French Muslim student of North African descent and unknown nationality, as a
third suspect in the shooting, accused of driving the getaway car. He was
believed to have been living in Charleville-Mézières, about 200 km
northeast of Paris near the border with Belgium. He turned himself in at
a Charleville-Mézières police station early in the morning on 8 January 2015.
The man said he was in class at the time of the shooting, and that he rarely
saw Chérif Kouachi. Many of his classmates said that he was at school in
Charleville-Mézières during the attack. After holding him for about 50 hours,
police said that he was not being charged at that time.
After the attack
Manhunt
A
massive manhunt began immediately after the
attack. One suspect left his ID card in an abandoned getaway car.
Police officers searched apartments in the Île-de-France region, in Strasbourg
and in Reims.
Police
detained several people during the manhunt for the two main suspects. A third
suspect voluntarily reported to a police station after hearing he was wanted,
and was not charged. Police described the assailants as "armed and
dangerous". France raised its terror alert
to its highest level and deployed soldiers in Île-de-France
and Picardy regions.
At
10:30 CET on 8 January, the day following the attack, the two primary suspects
were spotted in Aisne,
north-east of Paris. Armed security forces, including the National Gendarmerie
Intervention Group (GIGN) and the Force d'intervention de la
police nationale (FIPN), were deployed to the department to search for the
suspects.
Later
that day, the police search concentrated on the Picardy, particularly the area
around Villers-Cotterêts and the village of Longpont,
after the suspects robbed a petrol station near Villers-Cotterêts, then
reportedly abandoned their car before hiding in a forest near Longpont.
Searches continued into the surrounding Forêt
de Retz (130 km2), one of the largest forests of France.
The
manhunt continued with the discovery of the two fugitive suspects early in the
morning of 9 January. The Kouachis had hijacked a Peugeot
206 near the town of Crépy-en-Valois. They were chased by police cars for
approximately 27 kilometres south down the N2 trunk road. At some point they
abandoned their vehicle and an exchange of gunfire between pursuing police and
the brothers took place near the commune of Dammartin-en-Goële, 35 kilometres (22 mi)
northeast of Paris. Several blasts went off as well and Saïd Kouachi sustained
a minor neck wound. Several others may have been injured as well but no one was
killed in the gunfire. The suspects were not apprehended and escaped on foot.
Dammartin-en-Goële hostage crisis
At
around 9:30 am, the Kouachi brothers fled into the office of Création
Tendance Découverte, a signage production company on an industrial estate in
Dammartin-en-Goële. Inside the building were owner Michel Catalano and a male
employee, 26-year-old graphics designer Lilian Lepère. Catalano sent Lepère to
hide in the refectory and remained in his office himself. Not long after, a
salesman named Didier went to the printworks on business. Catalano came out with
Chérif Kouachi who introduced himself as a police officer. They shook hands and
Kouachi told Didier, "Leave. We don't kill civilians anyhow." These
words were what caused Didier to guess that Kouachi was a terrorist and he
alerted the police.
The
Kouachi brothers remained inside and a lengthy standoff began. Catalano
re-entered the building and closed the door after Didier had left. The brothers
were not aggressive towards Catalano, who stated, "I didn't get the
impression they were going to harm me." He made coffee for them and helped
bandage the neck wound that Saïd Kouachi had sustained during the earlier
gunfire. Catalano was allowed to leave after an hour. Catalano swore three
times to the terrorists that he was alone and did not reveal Lepère's presence.
The Kouachi brothers were never aware of him being there. Lepère hid inside a
cardboard box and sent the police text messages for around three hours during
the siege, providing them with "tactical elements such as [the brothers']
location inside the premises".
Given
the proximity (10 km) of the siege to Charles de Gaulle Airport, two of the
airport's runways were closed. Interior Minister Bernard
Cazeneuve called for a police operation to neutralise the perpetrators.
However, an Interior Ministry spokesman announced that the Ministry wished
first to "establish a dialogue" with the suspects. Officials tried to
establish contact with the suspects to negotiate the safe evacuation of a
school 500 m from the siege. The Kouachi brothers did not respond to
attempts at communication by the French authorities.
While
the Kouachi brothers were holding hostages in Dammartin-en-Goële, Amedy
Coulibaly, who had met the brothers in prison, took hostages in a kosher
supermarket at Porte de Vincennes in east Paris. Coulibaly was
reportedly in contact with the Kouachi brothers as the sieges progressed, and
told police that he would kill hostages if the brothers were harmed.
The
siege lasted for eight to nine hours, and at around 4:30 p.m. there were
at least three explosions near the building. At around 5:00 pm, a police
team landed on the roof of the building and a helicopter landed nearby. Before
police could reach them, the pair ran out of the building and opened fire on
police. The brothers had stated a desire to die as martyrs and the siege came
to an end when both Kouachi brothers were gunned down. Lilian Lepère was
rescued unharmed. A cache of weapons, including Molotov
cocktails and a rocket launcher, was found in the area.
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