Two Brothers Suspected in Killings Were Known to French Intelligence Services

Paris: When Cherif Kouachi first came to the attention of the French authorities as a possible terrorist a decade ago, he was in his early 20s and, according to testimony during a 2008 Paris trial, had dreamed of attacking Jewish targets in France. Under the influence of a radical Paris preacher, however, he decided that fighting U.S. troops in Iraq presented a better outlet for his commitment to jihad.

On Wednesday, Kouachi, according to investigators, returned to his original plan of waging holy war in France. Along with his older brother, Said, and a third French Muslim of North African descent, he was named as one of three who were involved in an assault on a satirical newspaper in Paris that left at least 12 people dead. (2 Brothers Involved in Paris Attack Located in North France: Reports)

Cherif and Said, aged 32 and 34, are suspected of being the masked gunmen who entered the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper at 10 Rue Nicolas-Appert in the 11th Arrondissement on Wednesday morning and slaughtered members of the paper's staff and two police officers with Kalashnikov automatic weapons. (Terrorists Strike Paris Paper That Lampooned Islam; 12 Are Killed)

According to the authorities, the third and youngest suspect, Hamyd Mourad, 18, drove the getaway car. Mourad turned himself in late Wednesday at a police station in Charleville-Mezieres in northern France. (Police Hunt Brothers After Paris Attack, Third Man Hands Himself in)

Le Point, a leading French newsmagazine, said that the two brothers had both been known by the intelligence services, and that Mourad was unemployed. It said that the police had identified the suspects after one left his identification papers in the abandoned Citroen vehicle used to escape after the attack on Charlie Hebdo. (Charlie Hebdo Editor Made Provocation His Mission)

The massacre, which singled out cartoonists and other staff members at a newspaper that frequently mocked Islam, Christianity and all forms of religious and secular authority, left France stunned. It also raised questions about how Cherif Kouachi, so well-known to the police for so many years, and his brother had managed to conceal their intentions. Part of the answer may be that they appear to have moved smoothly between normal immigrant society and an extremist Islamist underground. Born in the 10th Arrondissement, they came from secular backgrounds and initially drifted into petty delinquencies, not religious fanaticism.

Liberation, a French newspaper, described Cherif Kouachi as an orphan whose parents were Algerian immigrants. It said he was raised in foster care in Rennes, in western France, and trained as a fitness instructor before moving to Paris, where he moved in with his brother Said in the home of a convert to Islam. He held menial jobs, working at times as a pizza delivery man, shop assistant and fishmonger.

He was first arrested in 2005 in connection with a case centered on Farid Benyettou, a 26-year-old janitor-turned-preacher who gave sermons calling for jihad in Iraq and justifying suicide bombings. Among Benyettou's would-be recruits was Cherif Kouachi, then 22, who was detained as he prepared to leave for Syria, the first leg of a trip he hoped would take him to Iraq. (After the Deadliest Terror Attack Ever, France Says 'Not Afraid')

Brought to trial in 2008, he was presented by his lawyer, Vincent Ollivier, as a confused chameleon who, when not attending classes on jihad by Benyettou, smoked marijuana, listed to rap music and described himself as an "occasional Muslim."

The Iraq recruitment group, known as the 19th Arrondissement network, sent at least a dozen Parisians to fight in Iraq, prosecutors asserted. (Cartoonists Draw for Assassinated Charlie Hebdo Colleagues)

Cherif's interest in radical Islam, it was said at the 2008 trial, was rooted in his fury over the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, particularly the mistreatment of Muslims held at Abu Ghraib prison. Cherif was given a three-year sentence for involvement in a network that recruited young French Muslims to fight alongside Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2006. Having already spent three years in pretrial detention, he was swiftly released.