Paris Shooting Suspects Arrested: Said And Cherif Kouachi, Hamyd Mourad Linked To Muslim Terrorist Group
The Paris shooting suspects have been arrested, with one of three men killed in a police raid in Reims. The Charlie Hebdo shooting suspects arrested are named Said and Cherif Kouachi, and Hamyd Mourad. Reports are not clear which one of the three were killed, but it’s also being claimed the men have ties to a Yemeni Muslim terrorist group.
In a related report by the Inquisitr, the attackers were caught on video as they killed French police officers execution style. Howard Dean claims that calling the shooters “Muslim terrorists” is wrong, although Christopher Hitchens would disagree. Donald Trump claims French gun control laws can be blamed since unarmed police were the first to arrive on scene while riding push bikes, and Trump believes the citizens and police officers slain in the Paris shooting should have been able to defend themselves.
According to an eye witness report by journalists watching from the safety of the rooftops, this is how the Charlie Hebdo shooting took place.
“After around ten minutes we saw two heavily armed, masked men in the street. Three policemen arrived by push bike, but they left naturally as the attackers were armed. They got into a car after a few minutes after shouting in the street. There was quite a lot of gunfire in the street for a few minutes. Firemen, ambulances and police vehicles arrived a few minutes later.”
The news that the police had the Charlie Hebdo suspects arrested came from two senior U.S. counter-terrorism officials, according to NBC News. Said and Cherif Kouachi are brothers, ages 32 and 34 years old. Hamyd Mourad is stated as being only 18 years old and was a graduating student from a high school in Charleville-Mezieres. All three men are thought to be of Muslim descent, although Mourad is not a French citizen.
Dieses Foto soll die beiden Brüder Said & Cherif Kouachi zeigen. @BILD @FlorianFlade #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/iOQdgj3MO5
— Alexander Blum (@boulevard_blum) January 7, 2015
Officials say the men are linked to a Muslim terrorist network and that Cherif Kouachi was convicted in 2008 of terrorism charges for helping funnel jihadist fighters from France to Iraq. According to Heavy, he served only 18 months in prison, and the remaining 18 months of his sentence was suspended. Cherif was a member of the 19th arrondissement network, which derived its name from a North African neighborhood where it’s based. Kouachi was allegedly inspired to join the Muslim terrorist group due to the stories of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses.
Said Kouachi were orphaned by their Algerian-immigrant parents as children and grew up in the city of Rennes. Police identified Said because he left his ID card in the getaway vehicle.
The motives of the gunmen are still being investigated, but they were heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) as they shoot their way down the streets near the building. Witnesses also say they told onlookers, “You can tell the media that it’s al Qaeda in Yemen.”
Members of the Islamic state have also been leaving many Twitter posts indicating support for the Paris shooting suspects. One ISIS member on Twitter even claimed the Charlie Hebdo shooting “proves that the Islamic State can strike deep in Europe whenever it wishes.” Officially, no organization has claimed that Hamyd Mourad, Said Kouachi, or Cherif Kouachi are part of their group.
