Charlie Hebdo suspect Cherif Kouachi linked

to network of French militants

Man who led deadly attack on the satirical magazine had links to disorganised web of
extremists for more than 10 years

Cherif Kouachi had been

jailed for his role in a network sending volunteers to fight alongside al-Qaida militants
in Iraq. Photograph: AP
Jason Burke-Thursday 8 January 2015
The prime suspect in the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was an active
member of a loose network of French militants, active for over two decades, that
stretched from Syria to the UK.

Cherif Kouachi, 32, had

been imprisoned for 18 months for his role in a network sending volunteers to fight
alongside al-Qaida militants in Iraq between 2003 and 2005 and had been
investigated for his involvement in a plan to break a veteran extremist out of prison in
2010.
The news of his previous record as an active extremist known to authorities will raise
difficult questions for the French security services.
As Kouachi was being hunted along with his older brother, 34-year-old Said, by French

police on Thursday night, the picture of his links to a disorganised web of extremists
became clearer.
Individuals linked to the network are currently active in Syria and Libya. A jailed militant
described by Le Monde newspaper as Kouachis mentor was a key extremist
organiser in the UK in the late 1990s and was connected to Abu Qatada, the Londonbased radical preacher deported after a long legal struggle to Jordan in 2013. Others
are spread out across France. No evidence has yet emerged of any connection to any
overseas organisation, although the involvement of al-Qaida and its affiliate, al-Qaida
in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, have been suggested, along with Islamic
State (Isis).
French intelligence services are understood to have told their UK counterparts that
their investigation has found nothing indicating any connection with any of these, or
any other, groups.
Investigators believe the weapons used in the assault may have been obtained from
gangsters, possibly through connections made in prison.Manuel Valls, the French
prime minister, told French media there is never zero risk, adding: The police and
judicial services have dismantled numerous groups and blocked bomb plots. Thats
proof that we are acting. Hundreds of people are followed, dozens have been
questioned, dozens have been jailed. That shows the difficulties facing our services:
the number of individuals who pose a threat, he said.
French police and intelligence services were heavily criticised in 2012 after a 23-yearold French Muslim who had recently returned from Pakistan and Afghanistan went on
a 10-day shooting spree, killing seven people. Kouachi, with a record of at least a
decade of involvement in militant groups, would seem to have been an obvious target
for surveillance.
An orphan of parents of Algerian origin living in the west of France, Kouachi grew up in
Paris, earning a technical qualification as a sports instructor. In about 2003, he
became involved in a notorious group known as the Buttes-Chaumont network, named
after the park in north-east Paris where members met and undertook physical training.
Investigators say the network funnelled about a dozen French fighters to camps linked
to an al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq. Three of the groups members were killed in action,
several more were captured there and three, including Kouachi, were arrested in
France before leaving.
The network was broken up by French authorities in 2005 and the preacher accused
of being its ringleader sentenced to six years in prison.
Kouachi, who had been working as a pizza delivery driver, told the court during the
trial in 2008 that he had been motivated to travel to Iraq by images of atrocities
committed by US troops in Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. Radical
sermons by the groups leader, a self-taught preacher, convinced him that violent
jihad and suicide was an obligation according to Muslim holy texts.

Lawyers for Kouachi told the trial he was not an observant Muslim and had smoked
hash, drunk and had a girlfriend before becoming involved with the Buttes-Chaumont
group. Other members had been habitual petty criminals, the newspaper Libration
reported at the time. Before I was a delinquent. But after I felt great. I didnt even
imagine that I could die, Kouachi told the court.
The former aspirant rapper was not a particularly enthusiastic warrior, however, and as
the date to leave for Iraq via Syria approached, his concerns grew, he said.
Kouachi nonetheless ran with the other members of the group to get fit for combat,
was given a brief account of how to handle a Kalashnikov assault rifle by a man he
met in a mosque, and had bought a ticket to travel when he was arrested.
After serving 18 months of a three-year prison sentence, he was released and worked
on the fish counter of a supermarket in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-SainteHonorine.
In 2008, he married a devout Muslim woman who ran activities for toddlers in a
creche. The couple lived in Gennevilliers, in the Hauts-de-Seine department.
However, his involvement in radical Islamic activism was not over and he remained in
touch with other members of the Buttes-Chaumont gang.
According to Le Monde, Kouachi was placed under surveillance in 2010 when
investigators discovered a plan to break out of prison the man who masterminded a
bombing at a train station in Paris in 1995, which injured 30 people.
Kouachi was held for three months under strict French anti-terror laws before being
freed for lack of evidence. Investigators believed his brother, Said, was also involved
in the plot and said the network planning the breakout was led by Djamal Beghal, the
mentor Kouachi had met when jailed previously.
Beghal, a French-Algerian who had lived in Leicester and London in the late 1990s,
was detained in 2001 while returning from Afghanistan to France. Interrogation
documents from the time reveal that he told investigators in the United Arab Emirates
that Osama bin Ladens personal secretary had given him the orders to bomb the US
embassy in Paris. He later said he had been tortured.
Beghal, who was in close contact with radical cleric Abu Qatada, was jailed for 10
years. In prison, he became a mentor to Kouachi, according to media reports in
France. The two remained in contact: after Beghals release into a form of house
arrest in 2010, the pair met and allegedly discussed the breakout plan. Security
services moved in, but although they suspected Kouachis role they were unable to
provide sufficient evidence to support charges against him.
Kouachi is also thought to have maintained links with former members of the ButtesChaumont group. One member, Boubakeur el-Hakim, recently surfaced in
Tunisia, where he is believed to have killed a local politician. Others fought in Iraq

alongside Salim Benghalem, who isdescribed by the US government as a Syriabased French extremist and [Islamic State] member who carries out executions on
behalf of the group.
Benghalem was also in touch with another member of the Buttes-Chaumont
group involved in the breakout plot.
This web of associations, typical of contemporary militant activism, complicates the
task of investigators looking to establish the origins of the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
It is impossible that an operation on the scale of the one that led to the massacre at
Charlie Hebdo was not sponsored by Daesh [an alternative name for Isis], said JeanPierre Filiu, an expert on radical Islam at Pariss Sciences Po university.
However, experts are split over the degree of professionalism shown by Wednesdays
attackers. Some of their tactics indicated a familiarity with weapons, but they were
unclear of the exact address of the magazine they were targeting and unfamiliar with
its security systems. Al-Qaida and its affiliates have always stressed thorough prior
reconnaissance of targets when training individuals.
More likely is a scenario involving a small number of principal actors possibly only
Kouachi and his brother who were supported by the broader network built up over
decades to execute a plan they had envisaged for almost as long.
A third suspect in the attack, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, surrendered to police in the
northern town of Charleville-Mzires on Wednesday.
Posted by Thavam