home Security Counter Terror Spotlight on Global Jihad – Paris terrorist attacks

Spotlight on Global Jihad – Paris terrorist attacks

Jan 20, 2015

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

This week was marked by a series of terrorist shooting attacks in Paris, directed against the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and Jewish targets. These attacks killed 17 people. Two jihadi operatives who carried out the attacks were affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and a third expressed solidarity with ISIS. At this point, based on preliminary information, the ITIC believes that the attacks were local initiatives of French jihadi operatives who collaborated among themselves and were not directed and guided from the outside.

Series of shooting attacks in Paris

Between January 7 and 9, 2015, three French jihadi operatives carried out a series of shooting attacks in Paris. The series of attacks included: a shooting attack at the offices of the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had long been in the jihadi organizations’ crosshairs (12 killed); a shooting attack at a Jewish school that was not carried out, apparently because of a traffic accident (one policewoman killed); and a shooting attack coupled with a bargaining attempt at a kosher supermarket (four killed, all Jewish). Seventeen people were killed and more than 10 were wounded in the attacks.
The attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo was carried out by two Muslim brothers of Algerian extraction linked to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The organization issued a video expressing solidarity with the attack and calling on jihadists to carry out additional attacks in France (although so far AQAP did not officially claim responsibility). The terrorist operative who carried out the attack in the kosher supermarket was a French jihadist who identified himself as an ISIS supporter, although ISIS did not officially claim responsibility for the attack (ISIS-supporting jihadists used the social networks to praise the attack).

Initial observations regarding the series of terrorist attacks:

France as the preferred country for carrying out terrorist attacks:In the ITIC’s assessment, France is in the crosshairs of ISIS and other jihadi organizations and operatives. That is because it joined the American campaign against ISIS (which led ISIS to call for “the burning of France”), and because the global jihad’s operational capabilities in France made such attacks possible. Fundamentally, jihadi capabilities exist because France has a large alienated Muslim population from which jihad operatives emerge. The jihadi threat in France is reflected in the large number of French foreign fighters who joined the ranks of ISIS and other jihadi organizations in Syria, larger than the numbers from any other Western country.^[3]The recent attacks have also illustrated the enormity of the additional threat posed by local jihadists who did not join the fighting in Syria.
The nature of the chosen targets: The satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo was in the jihadi organizations’ crosshairs. In the past, the weekly was threatened and its offices were firebombed. The kosher supermarket and the Jewish school where an attack was planned indicate (and not for the first time) that Jewish institutions in France (and in Europe in general) are targeted by supporters of ISIS and other jihadi organizations (the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels was carried out by a French jihadist with ties to ISIS).
A relatively high level of operational capability:In the recent attacks, especially the one on Charlie Hebdo, the terrorist operatives demonstrated considerabledaring and operational capability. The two brothers gained access to the Charlie Hebdo offices, which were apparently secured, apparently having intelligence about procedures, and preplanned their escape from the scene of the attack. The attack on the kosher supermarket and the attack on the school which was not carried out involved a lower level of operational capability. It is possible that they were spontaneous and intended to magnify the effect of the attack on Charlie Hebdo and support the perpetrators.
The nature of the cooperation between the jihadi organizations: The terrorists expressed solidarity with ISIS and AQAP. These are two rival organizations, the former a branch of Al-Qaeda in Yemen and the latter a jihadi organization challenging the Al-Qaeda leadership. The Kouachi brothers, who carried out the attack at Charlie Hebdo, had previous links to AQAP. However, the collaboration of the terrorist operatives involved in the series of attacks in Paris was, in the ITIC’s assessment, the fruit of local initiatives and interpersonal relations between jihadi operatives and not a function of established collaboration between theISIS and AQAPleaderships. In the ITIC’s assessment, such local collaboration of operatives from rival organizations could occur again in other Western countries.

Written by: The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center