Bharat Rakshak

Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, both French and in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, whose nationality wasn't immediately clear, were named by two officials, according to a police spokesman in Paris.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss the investigation, told the Associated Press that the men were linked to a Yemeni terrorist network. And Cherif Kouachi was convicted in 2008 of terrorism charges for helping funnel fighters to Iraq's insurgency and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Because the masked, black-clad gunmen attacked with militaristic precision, and left the scene with shouts of "Allahu Akbar," the killers were suspected to be well trained Islamic extremists. But their motive, and backgrounds, are still being investigated.

February 5, 2005
3 Frenchmen Among Those U.S. Military Holds in Iraq
By CRAIG S. SMITH

PARIS, Feb. 4 - Three French nationals are among the dozens of foreign fighters being held by the American military in Iraq, French officials confirmed Friday.

The men, captured late last year, are part of a small group of young French militants who have gone to Iraq to fight what some Muslims view as a holy war against the Americans. At least three have been killed there. Two others are in custody in France, where they were arrested on the eve of their planned departure last month together with the suspected leader of the group.

Of the three men in American custody, two were identified Friday by the newspaper Figaro as Checkou Diakhabi, 19, and Peter Cherif, 22.

"We have knowledge of these three people, but we know too little," said a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Hervé Ladsous. He added that France intended to "exert consular protection" over the men to ensure that they were afforded their rights but that the ministry was still waiting for more information from the American side. Foreign Minister Michel Barnier is expected to speak about the case with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits France next week.

The three men are believed to have left Paris for Iraq last March, accompanied by three other Frenchmen of North African descent, Redouane el-Hakim, Tarek Ouinis and Abdelhalim Badjoudj, all of whom have been killed, according to French intelligence.

According to intelligence officials, Mr. Hakim is believed to have died during a bombardment of Falluja in July, Mr. Ouinis during a firefight with American soldiers in September and Mr. Badjoudj in a suicide attack in October. Mr. Hakim's older brother, Boubaker, is being held in Syria, where he was arrested before he could enter Iraq.

The French authorities believe that the men were recruited by Farid Benyettou, 23, who was arrested two weeks ago as he prepared to send two more young men to Iraq. The men, Thamer Bouchnak and Cherif Kouachi, both 22, have told the police that they met Mr. Benyettou at the Addawa mosque near their homes in Paris in the 19th Arrondissement, a largely Arab working-class district.

According to lawyers involved in the case, Mr. Benyettou held court in the mosques, preaching jihad and benefiting from his aura as the brother-in-law of Yousef Zemmouri, a member of an Algerian terrorist organization, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, who was deported in 1998. Many people involved in the case suspect that there are more authoritative figures behind Mr. Benyettou, though there is no evidence that his activities are part of a larger network. Similar recruitment rings have been discovered in Germany and Italy.

The trail of would-be fighters from Europe to Iraq appears far less sophisticated than that which thousands of young European Muslims followed to Afghanistan in the 1980's and 1990's. But some elements are similar: in both cases, young men ostensibly left to study in Koranic schools and ended up bearing arms.

Mr. Bouchnak, for instance, had already made one trip to Syria last year, for the stated purpose of learning Arabic at a Koranic school. He left, but was encouraged by Mr. Benyettou to return. He went to Mecca in January for the hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage, and returned to Paris on Jan. 24, intending to leave the next day with Mr. Kouachi for Syria and ultimately Iraq. The two planned to pray with Mr. Benyettou at his home before departing, but Mr. Bouchnak was arrested at the airport upon his arrival from Mecca.

Mr. Kouachi was arrested two days later, having missed his flight for Syria. The arrests were part of a broader sweep that took 11 people into custody. Eight of those people have been released without charge.

According to lawyers involved, neither Mr. Bouchnak nor Mr. Kouachi had received any formal weapons training. They say that the men have not denied that they intended to fight in Iraq but that both had begun having second thoughts and have since expressed relief that they were stopped.

Together with Mr. Benyettou, they have been charged with criminal association in relation to a terrorist enterprise.

e New York Times tweeted today that the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which found itself the victim of a gruesome massacre, “long tested the limits of satire.” I did not know that there were limits to satire or that the Gray Lady, which often unintentionally engages in the art form, had managed to uncover them. The implication here is one that will surely become as tediously explicit in the hours and days ahead as it is familiar: If you “provoke” Muslims by mocking their religion, then you’ve only yourself to blame for what happens next.Some in the media are admirably honest about why they go mum in this regard. Stephen Pollard, the editor of London’s Jewish Chronicle, today explained that his newspaper will not run any of Charlie Hebdo’s notorious cartoons in its coverage of the terrorist attack on the French weekly: “Get real, folks. A Jewish newspaper like mine that published such cartoons would be at the front of the queue for Islamists to murder,” Pollard wrote on Twitter. I don’t blame him and nor should you. As he further put it, he doesn’t feel entitled to take the lives of his staff into his own hands to “make a point.” Media organizations throughout the world are now dealing with much the same problem, albeit without like-minded candor. (Britain’s Daily Telegraph, for instance, which has no problem pursuing Islamist politicians at home or exhibiting the war crimes of jihadis in Syria and Iraq, today blurred one of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.)But now contrast Pollard’s justification with how Bruce Crumley, Time magazine’s then-Paris bureau chief, characterized the work of satirists after Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed in 2011 for the ostensible “offense” of putting Mohammed in the editor’s chair for a single issue: “[N]ot only are such Islamophobic antics futile and childish, but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common good is served by creating more division and anger, and by tempting belligerent reaction?”
Openly beg. I wonder if Crumley will write that the 10 Charlie Hebdo employees gunned down today by men claiming (evidently in perfect French) to have “avenged the Prophet Muhammad” got what they deserved or were perhaps laïcité’s answer to suicide bombers. The Financial Times’ Tony Barber calls the satirical newspaper a “bastion of the French tradition of hard-hitting satire” in a sentence right before one in which he calls it a bastion of “baiting and needling Muslims.” Well, which is it? Hard-hitting satire or rank bigotry? This is by no means the only logical pretzel Barbers wanders into in essentially blaming the magazine for its own misfortune. He of course doesn’t “condone” murder or the curtailment of free speech, only “common sense” in editorial standards — because without curtailing free speech, one may invite murder. Got that?All of Charlie Hebdo’s staff, I think it’s safe to assume, knew what they were doing in deriding fanaticism. And they were proud of it.All of Charlie Hebdo’s staff, I think it’s safe to assume, knew what they were doing in deriding fanaticism. And they were proud of it. This deserves our respect. Indeed, if the tragedy in Paris right now can be at all leavened by black comedy, then the privilege belongs to none other than the paper’s full-time editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, or “Charb,” the cartoon signature by which he was more commonly known. His last graphic installment featured a moronic-looking muhajid saying, “No attacks in France yet; wait! There’s until the end of January to wish Happy New Year.”I suppose commentators will blame Charb posthumously for predicting his own death. Though he does nicely sow “division” between secularism and the worldview espoused by al Qaeda or the Islamic State, an organization which has done its part for the common good by raping Yazidi women, executing Kurds, murdering Sunni tribesmen, and calling for the extermination of all Shiites. But at least the Islamic State’s victims never drew a naughty picture.

Je painter le Mo.. a poil

avec Ayesha a neuf ans

Outside the building, as the gunmen tried to flee in their Citroën van, three officers in a police patrol car intercepted them. Two suspects got out of the van, and one fired repeatedly into the windshield of the patrol car.

The source said the patrol car driver slammed the car into reverse, while another officer in the car returned fire at the shooter. The patrol car driver then hit the brakes, allowing an officer in the back seat to jump out and run toward the suspects. But the officer was shot and wounded by the suspects. He was executed with a shot to the head as he lay on the sidewalk.

(So there were two armed policemen watching this happen?)

After killing the officer, the gunmen returned to their car, shouting, "We avenged the Prophet Muhammad," the source said.

Eleven other people were injured, four of them critically, officials said.

nandakumar wrote:A very nice comment piece on the recent shootings in Paris. The principal contention of the author is that the French muslim community is not interested in the radical politics of the Al Quaeda variety. So conditions have to be created among the people of France so that they turn against the muslims. This will then create necessary conditions for a sense of alienation among the muslims and they join radical movement that professes to espouse their cause. This the template that Bolsheviks successfully tried out in Russia for communists to take over. This also the model tihat create d a Sunni Shia divide in Iraq.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/sharpen ... rists.html

Some of those involved in recent European plots—and one of the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack—have been radicalised and trained in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nearby and accessible, Syria is the main destination.

trained in the xxxxxxx and Pakistan.

arun wrote:

niran wrote:A Paki ISI agent and khalistan tiger

Was going to X Post that from the "ISI - History and Discussions" thread but see you have done so.

So a Khalistani terrorist holding a Pakistani passport arrested in Pattaya, Thailand at the home of a Pakistani National believed to be an agent of the terrorist fomenting intelligence arm of the Uniformed Jihadi’s of the Military of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate aka ISI aka ISID.

The Khalistani Terrorist in question being one Jagtar Singh alias Tara Singh alias Gurmeet Singh who escaped from Indian custody while serving time for the killing of Punjab CM Beant Singh and fled to the Islamic Republic for shelter:

Gagan wrote:AoA
Why no one ij following news of Soosai bum in Imambargah in Pindi hain ji?
Why everyone want to see two twits getting pest-e-shaheed at le hands of inspecteur' clouseaus hain ji?
And that to in a dhaga dedicated to Al Bakistan !!!

UlanBatori wrote:PakWatch continues: 3 named

Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, both French and in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, whose nationality wasn't immediately clear, were named by two officials, according to a police spokesman in Paris....

Read bold letters. Then again, it is clear that L'Inspecteaure Clouseau is heading the paki-hunt here.

****
“Third Suspect Surrenders”: that headline was everywhere as France woke up from its first, restless night after a massacre Wednesday at the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine. The suspect was Mourad Hamyd, whose name and date of birth (August, 1996) appeared on what was purported to be a police document circulated in the press. Various officials also apparently confirmed that he was, at eighteen years old, a wanted man: “According to authorities, the third and youngest suspect … drove the getaway car.” Some publications noted that Hamyd was “unemployed”—a “delinquent,” like the other two suspects, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, who are both in their early thirties. He was of “undetermined nationality” and “under arrest”; he had “given up,” “turned himself in,” or, as Le Monde put it, come to his local police station, in the town of Charleville-Mézières, “to explain.”


At the same time, a group of teen-agers at the Lycée Monge in Charleville were writing their own reports, on Twitter and on Facebook, in a tone that was almost desperate. One with the user name @babydroma wrote, “SVP il était en cours toute la matinée, il est dans ma class”—“please, he was present all morning, he’s in my class.” She added the hashtag #MouradHamydInnocent. Another read, “Mourad Hamyd has been wrongfully accused, he was in class when these things happened, his classmates can vouch for him !!” And they kept doing so, with no apparent doubt or hesitation. One referred to “that smile” having been in school; others pointed to the distance between their town and central Paris (a hundred and forty-five miles). Another tweet mentioned having been with him in philosophy class—a very French place to be, for an eighteen-year-old. Some used the #MouradHamydInnocent hashtag as a Twitter name. Storify has a collection; so does the Guardian, which substantiated @babydroma’s teen-ager-ness, in part, with a reference to her James Franco Twitter wallpaper, and commented that one of @babydroma’s tweets indicated that she might be “frustrated by journalists and others questioning her identity and motive,” and read, “I swear I talked to Mourad maybe five times at most but I felt like I had to help him.” She followed it with “mdr,” for “mort de rire,” roughly “lol”—which might fall in the same evidence category as James Franco wallpaper. But the larger sentiment, and the sense of urgency and obligation on the part of all these teen-agers, suggested that their time in philosophy class might not have been entirely wasted.


In a less sombre context—without armed suspects still on the loose, a dozen people dead, a country in mourning—the philosophy class might explain why this teen-ager was categorized as “unemployed.” One might ask, instead, why we’d assume that an eighteen-year-old who is not drawing a paycheck is idle and, perhaps, a little shiftless, and whether that description would have been so quickly applied to a young person with a name that sounded different. Perhaps, for France, this is a form of one of the central questions the country faces. The Telegraph said that Mourad, “who is believed to have been the driver, is of no fixed abode,” suggesting a drifter moving from safe house to safe house, rather than, say, a teen-ager who doesn’t have his own apartment because he lives with his parents. Any number of social media posts were sure, meanwhile, that the home he ought to live in was a prison or—as briefly as possible, from their perspective—death row.

The trip from Hamyd’s house to the police station, which he reportedly took with his father, was, one imagines, a tense and nervous one. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. We don’t know why Hamyd’s name came up at all, and how he came to interest the police. There have been reports suggesting a family connection to the two Kouachis (some French press sources have referred to him as a brother-in-law), who have troubling histories that involve extremism and instability. Several other people have been brought in for questioning. The murderers, whoever they are, have killed a dozen people, stolen a car, and perhaps held up a gas station. And there are, no doubt, ways to be complicit in a crime without being present when it takes place.

As Thursday night fell in France, there was a massive manhunt still under way on highways throughout the north of France, in a forest, in a swamp. There is fear that the violence might not be over—and that the fear itself, even after the violence ends, will endure. Paris was defiant, fearless, and beautiful in the dark after the attack, with crowds gathering despite the unfinished pursuit of the fugitives. The magazine’s surviving staffers have said that they will publish a new issue next week, on schedule. “Je Suis Charlie” was the sign—“I am Charlie” joined, as Philip Gourevitch pointed out, by “Je Suis Ahmed,” in honor of Ahmed Merabet, a policeman killed outside the magazine’s office. And, in Whoville-like voices, teen-agers keep tweeting the one thing they knew about their classmate’s supposed career as a getaway-car driver: he was here. Whatever the story of Mourad Hamyd turns out to be, all those slogans express the same commitment and willingness to bear witness. Among the postings from @babydroma was this one: “Mon père m’a dit qu’il est fier de mes tweets et que je soutienne Mourad”—“My father told me that he’s proud of my tweets and that I’m supporting Mourad.”

"I was sent, me, Cherif Kouachi, by Al Qaeda of Yemen. I went over there and it was Anwar al Awlaki who financed me," he told BFM-TV by telephone, according to a recording aired by the television channel after the siege was over.

Amber G. wrote:Question for experts: In Hayat Boumeddiene picture above, is she wearing a Paki general's uniform or the Paki generals only use burqa's when for fleeing..