INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2015 Charlie Hebdo suspects well-known to police PARIS: One had a long history of jihadist ties and links to a key Islamic State militant while the other was on a US watchlist and trained with Al-Qaeda in Yemen, yet the Charlie Hebdo sus- pects still managed to slip under the radar of French intelli- gence. Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his brother Said, 34, are accused of carrying out the deadly attacks on the office of satirical mag- azine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday that left 12 dead. Born to Algerian parents in Paris and orphaned at a young age, they grew up in the east of the city not far from the site of this week’s attack. According to US officials, Said Kouachi was known by French intelligence to have travelled to Yemen in 2011, where he received training from Al-Qaeda’s affiliate there in small arms combat and marksmanship. Both were on a US database and no-fly list as terror suspects. Cherif’s history with jihadist networks is even better docu- mented and dates back over a decade to his days as part of the “Butte-Chaumont network”, named after a park in the 19th arrondissement of Paris where its members lived. This group of young, radical Muslims helped transport people to Iraq to join Al-Qaeda’s fight against US forces at the height of their inter- vention. The younger Kouachi, sometimes going by the name Abu Issan, was only 22 when the network was broken up by French police. He was arrested just as he was about to fly to Syria in 2005, from which he was due to travel on to the fight in Iraq. In an interview shortly after his arrest published by the SAINT-ETIENNE, France: A Muslim man holds a placard reading “Not in my name” during a gathering yesterday near a Pittsburgh Tribune, his lawyer Vincent Ollivier said Kaouchi, mosque in eastern France, after the country’s bloodiest attack in half a century on the offices of the weekly satirical then 22, was not particularly religious. “He drank, smoked pot, Charlie Hebdo killed 12 people on Jan 7. — AFP slept with his girlfriend and delivered pizzas for a living,” the newspaper reported. At his trial in 2008, Kaouchi said he was inspired by the abuse of detainees by US troops at Baghdad’s French attack to deepen Abu Ghraib prison, but was relieved he did not have to go through with the trip. He told the court he was working at a supermarket and his main interest was rap music, not jihad. An amateur video of his Europe’s ‘culture war’ early MC skills - shot a year before his arrest - is now circulating on social media. Despite his claims to being a reluctant funda- mentalist, Kouachi was sentenced to three years in prison - half Politicians on right seek political advantage of it suspended - and his contact with radicals only grew. Within months of getting out, he was embroiled in another plot, this PARIS: A deadly attack on a French satiri- tion is among factors destroying French round of a poll if a presidential election time a failed prison break for Algerian Islamist Smain Ait Ali cal magazine that lampooned Islam seems secular values, was the best-selling essay were held now, said “Islamic fundamental- Belkacem in May 2010. certain to fuel rising anti-immigration of 2014. The publishing event of the new ism” had declared war on France and that Belkacem was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002 for a movements around Europe and inflame a year is a novel by controversial author demanded strong, effective action. While bombing at the Musee D’Orsay metro station in Paris in “culture war” about the place of religion Michel Houellebecq that imagines a she was careful to draw a distinction October 1995 that left around 30 injured. Kouachi had report- and ethnic identity in society. The first Muslim president winning power in 2022 between Muslim citizens who share edly grown close to another militant Djamel Beghal, who end- reaction in France to Wednesday’s killing and enforcing religious schooling and French values and “those who kill in the ed up serving 10 years for his role as “kingpin” in the break-out of 12 people at the offices of Charlie polygamy in France and banning women name of Islam”, her father, National Front attempt. The charges against Kouachi were dropped. Hebdo by two masked gunmen who from working. founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, and her shouted Islamist slogans was an outpour- That intellectual ferment has mingled deputy, Florian Philippot, were less cau- Ties to IS ing of support for national unity and free- with public anxiety over the radicalisation tious. “Anyone who says Islamist radical- Al-Qaeda in Iraq gradually evolved into the Islamic State (IS) dom of speech. of hundreds of French Muslims who have ism has nothing to do with immigration is group, which broke ties with the parent group and gained But that looks likely to be little more gone to join Islamic State fighters in Syria living on another planet,” Philippot told worldwide infamy last year when it seized large swathes of Syria than a momentary ceasefire in a country and Iraq and who security officials fear RTL radio. and Iraq and executed a number of Western hostages. There are gripped by economic malaise and high may return to cause carnage in France. Imams intoned prayers outside the indications that Kouachi may have ties to IS, since he grew up unemployment. France has Europe’s The far-right National Front lost no time in offices of Charlie Hebdo on Thursday and with French-Tunisian Boubaker Al-Hakim, who was also a key largest Muslim population and is in the linking the most deadly act of political vio- Islamic leaders urged their faithful to join member of the Butte-Chaumount network. Hakim was tried at throes of a virulent debate over national lence for decades to immigration and call- in national mourning for the victims, the same time as Kouachi, receiving a seven-year sentence. He identity and the role of Islam. “This attack ing for a referendum to restore the death whose cartoons of Prophet Muhammad immediately returned to militancy after his release and claims is bound to accentuate rising penalty, even though a leading French (PBUH) had drawn the wrath of many responsibility for the high-profile assassination of two secular Islamophobia in France,” said Olivier Roy, a imam, Hassen Chalghoumi, said the right Muslims in the past. In what justice offi- politicians, Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, in Tunisia in political scientist and Middle East special- way to counter Charlie Hebdo was not cials said looked like revenge attacks, 2013. Hakim “represents the link between the Kouachi brothers ist at the European University Institute in through bloodshed or hate. shots were fired overnight at a mosque in and (IS),” said researcher Jean-Pierre Filiu, a leading expert on Florence. the western city of Le Mans, and a blast radical Islam at Paris’s Sciences Po university.—AFP A book by journalist Eric Zemmour ‘Another Planet’ destroyed a kebab shop next to a mosque entitled “Le suicide francais” (French sui- Party leader Marine Le Pen, who opin- in the central town of Villefranche-sur- cide), arguing that mass Muslim immigra- ion surveys suggest would top the first Saone.—Reuters Cameroon appeals for aid to fight Boko Haram YAOUNDE: Cameroon’s President Paul ing the African Union and our regional has deployed more troops to its Far Biya has appealed for international mili- organizations,” he said in a New Year North region and has killed hundreds of tary help to fight Islamist militant group speech on Thursday to diplomats at the the Islamist fighters. New laws aimed at Boko Haram, which this week threat- presidential palace. He said he regretted stamping out the militants were also ened to step up its cross-border raids that a regional military force against the helping, Biya said. into the country from Nigeria. The Islamists had yet to be established. “Although weakened by the losses it Nigerian group is part of a “global” At least 15 people were killed in an has suffered, our foe nonetheless movement that has attacked Mali, the attack on a bus in north Cameroon on remains capable of bouncing back,” he Central African Republic and Somalia in New Year’s day. A man purporting to be said. The German government donated its drive to establish its authority from Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, 120 all-terrain vehicles to Cameroon’s the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, Biya threatened in a video posted online this military in November. Boko Haram is the said. week to step up violence in Cameroon main security threat to Nigeria, Africa’s DAMMARTIN-EN-GOELE, France: Armed security forces fly “A global threat calls for a global unless it scrapped its constitution and leading energy producer and biggest overhead in a military helicopter in this small industrial response. Such should be the response embraced Islam. Biya did not comment economy and also threatens Chad and town northeast of Paris yesterday.—AP of the international community, includ- on the video in his speech. The country Niger. — Reuters