Suspects’ jihadi ties go back to first Iraq war
Younger Kouachi brother spent time in jail, the other reportedly trained in Yemen
Angered by the torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and influenced by a charismatic leader, a young Cherif Kouachi joined a French militant group funnelling fighters into Iraq.
They were known as either the “19th-arrondissement network,” a reference to the neighbourhood where many of the members lived, or the “Buttes-Chaumont group,” for the park where they would exercise.
Most members were petty criminals. Kouachi, a French citizen of Algerian descent, reportedly was orphaned and growing up with his older brother. He was an amateur rapper who liked his hash, his booze and his girlfriend.
But the group’s leader, Farid Benyettou, had roots tracing back to Iraq and Syria and boasted the contacts and experience to give him credibility among foreign fighters.
And Benyettou’s call to fighting in the battlefields of Iraq to “defend Islam” appealed to the group’s younger members looking for direction. “I really believed in the idea,” Kouachi, then 25, was quoted as saying during his 2008 trial in France, at which he was convicted of terrorism offences.
Six years later and Kouachi, now 32, along with his older brother, 34year-old Said, are the two main sus- pects in Wednesday’s deadly attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
A portrait emerged Thursday of a suspect whose history of militancy spans the years from the first war in Iraq to the conflict today. The New York Times and CNN reported late Thursday that Said Kouachi got military training in Yemen in 2011 before returning to France.
The report confirms what many had suspected Wednesday, given the precision of the attack and the skill of the shooters wielding Kalashnikovs. One of the masked gunmen also said, “Tell the media we are Al Qaeda in Yemen,” according to a witness.
Before the self-declared Islamic State group, also known as ISIS and ISIL, occupied a large swath of Syria and Iraq and encouraged its followers to strike non-Muslims wherever they could, the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was regarded as the greatest threat to the West.
AQAP had previously singled out Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons mocking Islam. In 2103, its propaganda magazine Inspire listed publisher Stéphane Charbonnier’s on its “hit list” in 2013.
Although little remains known about the elder Kouachi, Cherif Kouachi was tracked by France’s security services for years.
The New York Times reported the brothers’ names were on the U.S. nofly list. Cherif Kouachi had spent 18 months in jail for his role with the 19th-arrondissement network that sent French jihadis into Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003. Kouachi was arrested in January 2005 as he was purportedly preparing to travel to Iraq.
According to Le Monde newspaper, Kouachi befriended another influential extremist, Djamel Beghal, while in prison. Beghal, who went by the nickname of Abu Hamza, was serving a 10-year sentence for plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
Kouachi was in prison again in 2010 on suspicion of plotting to break out a radical militant who was imprisoned, but was released for lack of evidence, according to Le Monde.
It is too early to know the precise links that Kouachi currently maintains, either in France or abroad.
But past connections to known militants or affiliation with AQAP does separate him from other recent terror suspects, such as Michael Zehaf Bibeau, who stormed Parliament Hill in October and is often to as referred as a “lone wolf” suspect.
Terrorism analyst Charles Rault notes the significance of Kouachi’s past incarcerations. “It shows ‘veterans’ who got out of prison can get back and pose a very serious threat once again,” he said.
France had for years been successful in thwarting terrorist attacks, says Rault, but the threat has soared, in part due to the France’s role in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.
“Everyone knew, and both intel people and government people said it publicly, that something awful would happen someday.” Rault said.
France’s security services will now face tough questions about why the Kouachi brothers were not monitored, especially in light of revelations about travel to Yemen.