An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir October 2015 www.dfmagazine.ie 20 | by PAUL O'BRIEN T he end came shortly before dusk: a flash of orange followed by the unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire. through the smoke, cameramen and journal- ists watched as an operation conducted by French police special Forces came to a dramatic and bloody end. three police commandos, dressed in black, briefly appeared on the roof of a printing works in the small town of Dammartin-en- Goële near Charles de Gaulle airport. As the smoke cleared, two bodies, those of Cherif and saïd kouachi, lay dead. within minutes, armed police stormed a supermarket in the Porte de Vincennes area of Paris. Another gunman, Amédy Coulibaly, who had taken shoppers hostage, was shot dead. These actions on Friday 9th January 2015 marked an end to 72-hours of mayhem and death that gripped Paris and its citizens and shocked the world. on the morning of 7th January at about 11:30hrs local time, two gunmen armed with assault rifles entered the offices of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in Paris. Making their way through the building, they shouted "Allahu akbar!" (God is [the] greatest) as they fired up to 50 shots, killing 11 people and injuring 11 others. As they left the building, they were confronted by a French police officer whom they shot and killed. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to Al-Qae- da's yemen branch. Charlie Hebdo had attracted attention for its controversial depictions of the prophet Muhammad and its printed jokes about Islamic leaders, which many believe was the principal motive behind the attack on their offices. A massive manhunt got underway after the attack and police quickly identified the suspects after one of them left his ID card in the abandoned getaway car. The getaway driver soon turned himself in to police but Cherif and Saïd Koua- chi hijacked another vehicle and headed in a north-easterly direction, where they held up a petrol station, alerting the police to their location. Armed security forces, including the National Gendarmarie Intervention Group (GIGN) and the Force d'Intervention de la Police Nationale (FIPN), were deployed in rural Picardy, an area dotted with picturesque vil- lages. Having run out of petrol, the Kouachis hijacked another car, and, crashing through a police roadblock, headed south back towards Paris. The police gave chase and a brief gun battle erupted between the two groups, forcing the attackers to abandon their vehicle and flee on foot. The two brothers sought refuge in a printing works located in an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goële, taking the managing director hostage. Within minutes armed police units had sealed off the area, evacuated schools and busi- nesses, and ordered residents to stay indoors. As the police prepared for action at Dammartin-en-Goële, reports came in of a second hostage situation, this time at a kosher supermarket, 15 miles away near the large Jewish com- munity of Sainte-Mandé. A man armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle had entered the shop, opened fire and was hold- ing shoppers hostage. Police identified the gunman as Amédy Coulibaly, who was suspected of shooting a trainee police officer in the southern suburb of Mountrouge hours before. In response to the unfolding events in the city, 88,000 police officers were deployed, securing the immediate areas of operations and other parts of the city. Initially the police believed that the shooting in Moun- trouge and the attack on Charlie Hebdo were unrelated, but French intelligence connected the two incidents when the assailants were identified and linked to the convicted terrorist, Djamel Beghal. They were all part of the same jihadi group and having seen that the Kouachi brothers had been tracked down; Coulibaly had taken hostages in an attempt to secure a safe passage for his fellow jihadis. However, talking to police negotiators, the men stated that they wanted to die as martyrs. The three men who carried out these attacks had lived in France for many years and were known to security agencies

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