One trained in Yemen?

"One of the two brothers suspected of gunning down 12 people in an attack on a Paris-based satirical magazine traveled to Yemen in 2011, where he was in touch with Al Qaeda training camp leaders and may have had contact with key leaders of the terrorist group including a bomb maker and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, U.S. officials told Fox News.

Both Said Kouachi, 34, who is known to have gone to Yemen, and his brother, Cherif Kouachi, who served time in France on a terrorism conviction, were on a U.S. no-fly list, sources said. The new information appeared to corroborate the suspects, who were still being hunted Thursday night, had ties to Al Qaeda's Arabian Peninsula affiliate (AQAP). Investigators are trying to determine if Wednesday's attack was directed from elsewhere, or an attack conceived and carried out by the brothers.

"AQAP has been the real force within Al Qaeda that's always been focused on external operations against the west and the United States - the most committed to doing this," a source told Fox News. "This would be one of the more real successes that they've have had if it turns out to be true.""  foxnews

----------------------------

This sounds like the truth.  Some training was evident in the attack but not a high level of proficiency.  This does not make him an AQAP operative.  That status would require him to have conducted this attack on orders from AQAP.  pl 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/01/08/ideal-target-brothers-suspected-in-paris-massacre-radicalized-in-france-known/

Comments

[anon914]

Fox News?

[turcopolier]

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I have endlessly tried to teach here that sources and info must be judged. Apart. PL

[Amir]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/07/france-charlie-hebdo-satirical-publisher/21377861

Thanks to BHO and Sarcopoleon / Hollandaise actions in Syria and Libia, we now have an assembly line for terrorists.

[Amir]

On the other hand, as an immigrant who actually experienced the good, the bad and the ugly in Belgium, the following really expresses that point of view very well:
NON, Je NE suis PAS Charlie Hebdo!
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2015/01/so-what-was-charles-hebdo-about.html

[Cee]

All,

One of the suspects appeared in a 2005 documentary. How bizarre.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000003437718/paris-terror-suspect-shown-in-2005-film.html

[different clue]

Amir,

On the other hand, if this magazine made pictures such as you describe about Anne Frank, or about various Christian persons; that magazine would not be visited by a massacre-murder death squad.

[Farooq]

Amir,
angry arab's post is completely one sided and he has made some incorrect claims. Take the concluding two lines
"Charlie Hebdo was a vile, disgusting individual who would be in a Parisian jail if not for the fact that his work targeted Muslims instead of Jews."

Just a cursory search on Charlie's cartoons turns up "Shoah Hebdo Intouchable 3",
Look at the cover image judge for yourself
http://www.tuxboard.com/photos/2012/09/shoah-hebdo-intouchable-3.jpeg

He also talks about conviction of Dieudonné M'bala M'bala on anti-semitism. But then have they also not convicted Brigitte Bardot multiple times for her anti muslim comments?
She has been convicted in 1997,1998,2000 and 2004. 5 times in all! it doesnt add up

[pob2]

Perhaps a Yemeni connection would transmit the requisite divine fire - or at least be more interesting than les banlieues on the dole. What passes for news in Australia seemed uniform in portraying the CH attack as the work of masterminds but it seems to me that if this were the case having to hijack a getaway car and subsequently rob a gas station were unorthodox gambits. (I am grateful to SST and its proprietor for the novelist's detail of the small dog in the car.) Whether there were two or three participants seemed a strange question to keep coming up in the media here - everyone said there were three but I could only see two and assumed it was my failing. However, it seems the third suspect was in school at the time of the outrage. Ho, as they say, hum! The fact that these folk were not willing to accept 100% casualties is significant, perhaps, but this may change - or appear to have changed - if our Gallic friends get hold of them.

[Poul]

Amir: The favourite religious target for Charlie Hebdo was the catholic church something the AngryArab ignores.
As can be seen in the rather crude front page.
http://imworld.aufeminin.com/story/20130224/charlie-hebdo-une-14309_w1000.jpg

AngryArab's point that we have different cultural borders for when you're out of line (regarding Dieudonné M'bala M'bala) is valid and a never-ending source of conflict.

[confusedponderer]

News from France:
It appears they have been found in the village of Dammartin-en-Goële in the vicinity of Charles de Gaulle airport. Reports are they have entrenched themselves in a printing shop.

It is unclear whether they have hostages. If so, let's hope the latter get out alive and well.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/charlie-hebdo-ein-dorf-im-belagerungszustand-a-1012126.html

[oofda]

Colonel,
Regarding your recent post about American "sheeple" and the U.S. media- this morning on CNN, Chris Coumo and others were "marveling" at how the Parisiens went about their business today, even though there was a security operation taking place in a southern part of the city and another about 50 km away. Apparently they expected the entire city of Paris to be locked down- or the Parisiens to be cowering behind their doors. Also Coumo bloviated on about with two security operations going on at the same time the French security forces "must be very stretched." Not. Amazing what nonsense is passed as news. Over the past couple days a lot of silly stuff has been put out on US media- and notably by the so-called experts.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I think one has to exercise judgment when dealing with alien people; one has to recognize that there are people in this world with very little tolerance for that which goes against their core beliefs & cherished notions.

It is not useful, in my opinion, to provoke such people.

[oofda]

According to Le Parisien, the GIGN assaulted and killed the two Kauachi brothers- and freed the hostages at Dammartin-en-Goële.

http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/en-direct-charlie-hebdo-les-freres-kouachi-retranches-dammartin-en-etat-de-siege-09-01-2015-4432631.ph

[oofda]

As well as the other hostage taker- almost simultaneus assaults.

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2015/01/09/fusillade-a-paris-porte-de-vincennes-le-tireur-retranche-dans-une-epicerie-casher_4552721_3224.html

[confusedponderer]

Re: "Also Coumo bloviated on about with two security operations going on at the same time the French security forces "must be very stretched." Not."

Since Europe is 'ungovernable', why am I not surprised?

[Piotr, Poland]

Very good action of lebanese jurnalist on Twitter:

"I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so. #JesuisAhmed"

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ahmed-merabet-the-muslim-police-officer-killed-in-charlie-hebdo-shooting-2015-1

[Medicine Man]

DC,

I've read a few responses like the Angry Arab's since the Paris attack. The point you make is one that inevitably gets glossed over in these tirades. The reactions of the lunatic fringe in Islam is treated like a natural consequence of actions in "The West", like a natural disaster or chemical reaction rather than the premeditated resolve of men with their own motivations. It is as if the fact that we have our own biases and bigotries somehow washes the murders clean of all culpability for their own actions—we made them do it with our reckless speech. I am not sympathetic to this line of argument.

With due respect to the Angry Arab, if this is how his people react to insult then they emphatically do need to chill the fuck out.

[Farooq]

I disagree as I don't think this make allowance for cherished belief method will work.
Quran condemns christian cherished belief of divinity of Jesus. Are you advocating banning publishing and distribution of Quran.
In my opinion a better way is to define the space in which free speech could be practiced. You can change the TV/radio channel and not buy an offensive book or magazine. You have choice in this matter so free speech should not be hindered. However if you picket and say hateful stuff funerals or churches or mosques just to cause get a rise offense, I think that's where boundaries should be set. You could still go somewhere else and get your bile out in public but not at the place where other party has no choice to avoid you.

[Dubhaltach]

In reply to confusedponderer 09 January 2015 at 12:51 PM

You're not surprised because you're a bratwurst chomping beer swilling surrender bonobo and this unhealthy lifestyle has atrophied your capacity for surprise. I urge you to visit France immediately and consume as much Pelforth and charcuteri as you can. But no cheese. That'll put you right and get rid of that pesky surrender reflex as well ^_^

Dubhaltach

PS: Some temptations are irresistible.

[Fred]

Amir,

Angry Arab (a professor in California) is upset with the hanging of Julius Streicher, who was convicted at the Nuremberg Trials? Too bad for the professor. Unlike with these two killers in Paris American Christians did not kill anyone over "Piss Christ" though there was plenty of liberal outrage when members of Congress cut funding to the National Endowment for the Arts over what they (the congressmen) felt was the payment to an 'artist' who won an award for a work of blasphemy.

[Kunuri]

I am wondering if Sultan Erdogan will attend the mourning gathering set in Paris Sunday. If he does, the irony and hypocrisy meters I have at the back of my mind will need new numbers on the dial.

[Kunuri]

Oh, there would be many second guessing from so called experts.

The French were very brave and they did the best they could do. They went in guns blazing to save the hostages, I watched live on TV all day, France 24. Unlike the Colombine debacle, cops taking cover behind doors while there was heavy shooting inside. I always wondered If I was there, whether I would go in guns blazing as well, knowing that kids were being killed inside, regardless of procedure. The French may be seen short in training, or coordination, but what I saw all day today was that they did not lack courage.

[Kunuri]

The so called "Press" here in Turkey, which is now widely controlled by Sultan Erdogan, got their talking points day one, 0 hour.

Their number one concern is that this attack will increase Islamophobia around the world, but not a word of condemnation on this ghastly attack as it relates to freedom of the press or expression.

Turkey, unfortunately, as far as it is represented by the Sultanate, is now officially out of the Western world. It is really disheartening to read and listen to the "Collaborating Media" here in Turkey. Especially for myself, being a professional visual artist and designer.

[Kunuri]

Oh sorry all, I forgot to add.

JE SUIS CHARLIE.

"Ben Charlie'yim."

[confusedponderer]

Given that either RAID or DIGN did the entry 'short of training' strikes me as unlikely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gendarmerie_Intervention_Group

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recherche_Assistance_Intervention_Dissuasion

They're right up there among the most professional of those sort of units worldwide. And good for the French.