R.K. Locke Wrote:[quote=David Guyatt]
I also can't understand why there is no blood in the photo of the police officer who was apparently shot in the head. Has it been edited out of the footage? That's the only explanation that I can think of.

French police mobilise after reports of the hostage situation at Port de Vincennes in Paris. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesAngelique Chrisafis in Paris
Friday 9 January 2015 18.12 GMT

[B]Chérif Kouachi, 32[/B]


Chérif Kouachi.Photograph: Getty ImagesThe younger of the two brothers suspected of carrying out the Charlie Hebdo attack who are thought to have been killed at the denouement of the hostage-taking in Dammartin-en-Goële. A French national, he was born on 29 November 1982 in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, one of five children of Algerian-born immigrants. Following the death of his parents, he grew up in care homes in Rennes in Brittany from the age of 12, where he trained for a sports education qualification.
After moving back to Paris he lived in the 19th arrondissement in the north of the city, working as a pizza delivery driver. Video footage from 2004 shows him in a backwards baseball cap rapping and dancing. In 2005, he had appeared in a French TV documentary on Islamist extremism, described as a "fan of rap music more inclined to hang out with pretty young girls than to attend the mosque". He described becoming radicalised, saying: "It's written in the texts that it's good to die as a martyr."
By 2005, he had become involved in a cell funnelling young men from working-class areas of the 19th arrondissement of Paris and sending jihadists to fight in Iraq. It was known as the Buttes Chaumont cell after the picturesque park in northern Paris where Kouachi was said to be among those who jogged to keep fit as part of their preparations.
He was stopped in 2005 on his way to take a flight to the Middle East as part of that cell. After his police interview, he said he was relieved to have been stopped as he hadn't wanted to leave but was afraid to have been seen to renege on his commitment or to be seen as a coward. One lawyer involved in the case told French media that at the time he seemed to have found a kind of family, a cause in life. In 2008, he was convicted on terrorism charges for his links to the cell and sentenced to 18 months in prison. While in prison, he was said to have met a mentor, Djamel Beghal, convicted for a plot to attack the US embassy in Paris.
After he was released from prison he kept a low profile, married, and from 2009 worked in a supermarket's fish section in a suburb of Paris.
In 2010, he was arrested as part of an alleged plot to free an Algerian Islamist, Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002 for a bombing at the Musee d'Orsay train station in Paris in October 1995 that left around 30 injured. Le Monde reported that transcripts it had obtained showed how Kouachi maintained total silence during police questioning in a manner that seemed to suggest training in how to deal with police interrogation. Kouachi was ultimately released with no charges brought against him.
[B]Saïd Kouachi, 34[/B]

Saïd Kouachi.Photograph: French Police/EPAThe elder of the two Kouachi brothers reported to have been killed on Friday was unemployed and had been living in a tower block in Reims in the Champagne region of north-east France. In the years up to 2005, he lived with his brother in the 19th arrondissement of Paris where they had attended the same mosque and moved in circles linked to the Buttes Chaumont cell. Unlike his brother, he was not convicted on terrorism charges linked to that cell.
A Yemeni security official told Associated Press that Saïd was in Yemen for a period of several months until 2012 and was suspected of having fought for al-Qaida there. One official said Saïd was probably among a group of foreigners deported from Yemen in 2012. Both brothers were on US and UK no-fly lists.
Worshippers at the mosque in Reims attended by Kouachi described him to Libération as a "solitary" man who "kept to himself" and was often late for prayers. Neighbours in his block of flats described him as having a wife and family, saying the only noise they heard from his flat was the sound of two young children.
[B]Amédy Coulibaly, 32[/B]

, from Juvisy-sur-Orge, in Essonne, outside Paris
Terror suspect Amedy Coulibaly. Photograph: AFP/Getty ImagesThe gunman who held hostages in a kosher grocery shop on the eastern edge of Paris was killed in a shootout late on Friday afternoon. Coulibaly was also suspected of having killed a French police officer in a shootout in the south of Paris on Thursday morning, less than 24 hours after the Charlie Hebdo attack.
Coulibaly was the only boy in a family of 10, according to Libération, which reported that people who knew him had described a happy childhood and average school record. He was said to have changed at around the age of 17 because of people he associated with.
While still a teenager, he became involved in crime and reportedly accrued several convictions for armed robbery from 2001 when he was still a minor. The news weekly L'Obs reported that he had met Chérif Kouachi, one of the brothers suspected of the magazine attack, between 2005 and 2006 when they were both in Fleury-Mérogis prison, south of Paris, known for its overcrowding. French media reported that Coulibaly had converted to Islam and become radicalised in prison.

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After an initial spell in prison for armed robbery, he was reported to have begun dealing drugs and served another sentence. After that, with training as a television-fitter, he settled in Grigny in Essonne, around 20km south-east of Paris.
At one point, he worked for Coca Cola just outside Paris. While there, he was apparently interviewed by French newspaper Le Parisien ahead of a planned encounter with the then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. An article dated 15 July 2009, a picture of which was tweeted by a member of the newspaper's staff on Friday, says Coulibaly was due to meet Sarkozy as part of an effort by the Elysée to support companies committed to employing young people.
"I'm really pleased. I don't know what I'll say to him. I guess I'll start with hello. Hopefully the president can help me get a job," Coulibaly was quoted as saying. The Guardian was unable to verify independently whether the man named in the article was the same man involved in the hostage-taking.
The Parisien article made no reference to Coulibaly's radical links or his criminal record he had just left prison not long before. The French media raised the question on Friday as to whether the Elysée security services were aware of that criminal record before the supposed meeting.
He was arrested by counter-terrorism police in 2010 on suspicion of having taken part in athe plot to aid the prison escape of Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem. During searches of his home, police found Kalashnikov ammunition. He received a prison sentence and is reported to have been released from prison just over a year ago.
Libération cited an expert psychiatric report as part of a court judgment which found "no pathology" but an "immature and psychopathic personality". An expert psychologist had pointed to "his poor powers of introspection" and the "rudimentary" nature of the motivation of his actions, as well as a sense of morality which was "lacking" and a wish to be "all powerful".
Le Monde reported that Coulibaly and Kouachi had shared a mentor in the radical figure Djamel Beghal.
Police are now searching for Coulibaly's live-in partner, Hayat Boumedienne.
[B]Hayat Boumedienne, 26[/B]

Terror suspect Hayat Boumeddiene.Photograph: Getty ImagesPolice released a photo of Boumedienne after the kosher grocery holdup at Porte de Vincennes. Le Monde reported that she had been in a relationship with Coulibaly since 2010 and had met him outside prison last spring when he was released after a four-year sentence. Coulibaly had been living with Boumedienne at her home since he left prison.
Boumedienne was interviewed by counter-terrorism police in 2010. Le Monde reported she had told police that during a visit to Beghal in Murat, in the Cantal countryside in central France, they had practised firing crossbows.
On Friday night her whereabouts remained unknown.

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Le Pen has not been invited....which is causing some controversy.

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Just did some internet searching...and it is now believed the woman Hayat Bourmeddiene is in Syria now...having left France some days ago [just after the shooting of the policewoman]. Very strange find....on the internet are photos of her in a hijab [sometimes firing weapons]...

Peter Lemkin Wrote:but there is also this photo below...not one I'd expect for a radical Muslim man or his mate!!! Something is very 'fishy' here....rotten in France, as Shakespeare would say. If she is in Syria, with radical Muslims, I hope they don't find this photo as easily as I did...for her sake.

Peter Lemkin Wrote:

Following the death of his parents, he grew up in care homes in Rennes in Brittany from the age of 12, where he trained for a sports education qualification.

Quote:Putin did it. Sorry, he didn't. In the end, it was not Russia "aggression" that attacked the heart of Europe. It was a pro-style jihadi commando. Cui bono?

Careful planning and preparation; Kalashnikovs; rocket-propelled grenade launcher; balaclavas; sand-colored ammunition vest stuffed with spare magazines; army boots; piece of cake escape in a black Citroen. And the icing on the lethal cake; faultless Paris-based logistical support to pull that off. A former top French military commander, Frederic Gallois, has stressed the perfect application of "urban guerrilla technique" (where are those notorious Western counter-terrorism "experts" when one needs them?)

They might have spoken perfect French; others said it was broken



French. Anyway, what matters is that they uttered the magic word; "We're al-Qaeda." Better yet; they told a man in the street, "Tell the media that this is al-Qaeda in Yemen", which means, in American terror terminology, al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), which had Charlie Hebdo's editor/cartoonist Stephane Charbonnier ("Charb") on a hit list duly promoted by AQAP's glossy magazine Inspire. Accusation: "Insulting the Prophet Mohammed."

And just to make sure everyone had the perpetrators implanted on their brain, the killers also said, "Allahu Akbar"; "We have killed Charlie Hebdo"; and "We have avenged the Prophet."

Case closed? Well, it took only a few hours for French police to identify the (usual?) suspects; French-Algerian brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi. The third man - the driver of the black Citroen, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad - then turned himself in with an ironclad alibi. So the third man remains a cipher.

They all wore balaclavas. The Kouachi brothers have not been captured. But the police seem to know very well who they are. Because they found an abandoned ID in the black Citroen (oh, the troubles of being a command in a rush ...) How come they didn't know anything before the carnage?

Right on cue, Cherif Kouachi's bio was splattered all over. He was on a global watch list. Along with six others, he was sentenced in May 2008 to 3 years in prison for "terrorism"; in fact unloading a dozen young Frenchmen via madrassas in Egypt and Syria to none other than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the killed-by-an-American-missile former head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the spiritual father of Daesh/ISIS/ISIL.

Also right on clue, a full narrative was ready for mass consumption. The key point; French police privileges the hypothesis of "Islamic terrorism". According to their "experts", this could be an attack "ordered from abroad and executed by jihadis coming back from Syria that have escaped us", or it could be "suburban idiots that radicalized themselves and concocted this military attack in the name of al-Qaeda."

Scrap option two, please; this was a pro job. And staying with option one, this points right at - what else - blowback. Yes, they could be Daesh/ISIS/ISIL mercenaries trained by NATO (crucially, France included) in Turkey and/or Jordan. But it might get even false-flag nastier. They could also be former or current French special forces.

Blast Islam, will travel
Predictably, Islamofascism peddlers are already having a field day/week/month/year. For simpletons/trolls/hordes exhibiting an IQ worthy of sub-zoology, when in doubt, demonize Islam. It's so convenient to forget that untold millions from Pakistan's tribal areas to street markets across Iraq continue to feel pain devastating their hearts and lives as they are expendable victims of the jihadi mindset - or "Kalashnikov culture", as it is known in Pakistan - profiting the "West", directly or indirectly, for decades now. Think ritual droning of Pakistani, Yemeni, Syrian, Iraqi or Libyan civilians. Think Sadr City witnessing carnages over 10 times worse than Paris.

What French President Francois Hollande defined as "an act of exceptional barbarism" - and it is - does not apply when the "West", France in the front line, from King Sarko to General Hollande himself, weaponizes, trains and remote-controls assorted mercenaries/beheaders from Libya to Syria. Oh yeah; killing civilians in Tripoli or Aleppo is perfectly all right. But don't do that in Paris.

So this, in the heart of Europe, is what blowback feels like. This is what people feel in the Waziristans when a wedding party is incinerated by a Hellfire missile. In parallel, it's absolutely impossible that the oh so sophisticated Western intel network had not seen blowback coming - and was impotent to prevent it (how come the scapegoats du jour, the Kouachi brothers, were not in the gallows?)

Of course the ultra-elaborate Western counter-terrorism expert network - so proficient at strip-teasing us all at every airport - saw it coming; but in shadow warland, portmanteau "al-Qaeda" and its myriad declinations, including "renegade" Daesh/ISIS/ISIL, are used as much as a mercenary army as a convenient domestic threat "against our freedoms".

Who profits?
US Think Tankland, also predictably, is busy spinning the drama of an "intra-Muslim" split which provides jihadis a lot of geopolitical space to exploit - all this sucking the Western world into a Muslim civil war. This is absolutely ridiculous. The Empire of Chaos, already during the 70s, was busy cultivating jihadi/Kalashnikov culture to fight anything from the USSR to nationalist movements all across the Global South. Divide and Rule has always been used to fan the flames "intra-Islam", from the Clinton administration getting cozy with the Taliban to the Cheney regime - helped by Persian Gulf vassals - advancing the sectarian Sunni/Shi'ite schism.

Cui bono, then, with killing Charlie? Only those whose agenda is to demonize Islam. Not even a bunch of brainwashed fanatics would pull off the Charlie carnage to show people who accuse them of being barbarians that they are, in fact, barbarians. French intel at least has concluded that this is no underwear bomber stunt. This is a pro job. That happens to take place just a few days after France recognizes Palestinian statehood. And just a few days after General Hollande demanded the lifting of sanctions against the Russian "threat".

The Masters of the Universe who pull the real levers of the Empire of Chaos are freaking out with the systemic chaos in the racket they so far had the illusion of controlling. Make no mistake - the Empire of Chaos will do what it can to exploit the post-Charlie environment - be it blowback or false flag.

The Obama administration is already mobilizing the UN Security Council. The FBI is "helping" with the French investigation. And as an Italian analyst memorably put it, jihadis don't attack a vulture hedge fund; they attack a satirical rag. This is not religion; this is hardcore geopolitics. Reminds me of David Bowie: "This is not rock'n roll. This is suicide."

The Obama administration is already mobilized to offer "protection" - Mob-style - to a Western Europe that is just, only just, starting to be diffident of the pre-fabricated Russian "threat". And just as it happens, when the Empire of Chaos mostly needs it, evil "terra" once again rears its ugly head.

And yes, I am Charlie. Not only because they made us laugh; but because they were sacrificial lambs in a much nastier, gruesome, never-ending shadowplay.

Lauren Johnson Wrote:Pepe Escobar

Quote:And as an Italian analyst memorably put it, jihadis don't attack a vulture hedge fund; they attack a satirical rag. This is not religion; this is hardcore geopolitics.

Magda Hassan Wrote:

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Le Pen has not been invited....which is causing some controversy.

I saw her in an interview here and she said she wasn't going. Her words were "I know when I am not wanted". Ahem.

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Just did some internet searching...and it is now believed the woman Hayat Bourmeddiene is in Syria now...having left France some days ago [just after the shooting of the policewoman]. Very strange find....on the internet are photos of her in a hijab [sometimes firing weapons]...

I saw that one too but with that sort of clothing who would know who is under that ? Could be anyone. Again we are taking someone's word for it.

Peter Lemkin Wrote:but there is also this photo below...not one I'd expect for a radical Muslim man or his mate!!! Something is very 'fishy' here....rotten in France, as Shakespeare would say. If she is in Syria, with radical Muslims, I hope they don't find this photo as easily as I did...for her sake.

Shades of Atta and company drinking and smoking and drugging at night clubs in Florida before 911.

Does any one know if she is ethnic French or Algerian or what? Is she Muslim? I wonder if she is involved in this because it is her boyfriend and she is in lerv with a douche bag or because she has ideological committments to these actions?

Boumeddiene is believed to have evaded capture.

Hayat Boumeddiene, with partner Amedi Coulibaly, wearing a bikini.