De tre jihadistene som drepte 12 mennesker i Charlie Hebdos lokaler onsdag, er identifisert, ifølge bladet Le Point. Det skal dreie seg om tre fransk-algirere. To av dem brødre.

Ifølge Liberation/Aftenposten er de også pågrepet, men det ble senere avkreftet.

Said Kouachi, født 1980.

Cherif Kouachi, født 1982.

Tredjemann Hamyd Mourad er bare 18 år.

Cherif Kouachi ble i 2008 dømt til tre års fengsel for å ha drevet rekruttering til al-Qaida i Irak. Det var mens Abu Musab Zargawi fortsatt levde. Han er forløper til IS.

Kouachi var del av et større nettverk som ble rullet opp og dømt:

Cherif Kouachi was known to police — from a 2008 Associated Press article:

Investigators say the alleged network funneled about a dozen French fighters to camps linked to al-Qaida in Iraq head Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and sought to send more before he was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2006. At least seven French insurgents have died in Iraq, some in suicide bombings, police say.

… Mohammed el-Ayouni, Thamer Bouchnak and Cherif Kouachi were given three-year sentences, 18 months of which were suspended. El-Ayouni lost an arm and an eye fighting in Iraq, while Bouchnak and Kouachi were arrested days before they planned to travel to Syria, allegedly to train for Iraq.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq was the precursor to ISIS.

A 2005 article had more on Cherif Kouachi, from the perspective of his lawyer: “Kouachi, 22, lived his entire life in France and was not particularly religious, Ollivier said. He drank, smoked pot, slept with his girlfriend and delivered pizzas for a living. His parents, Algerian immigrants, are dead.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-07/three-paris-terrorists-identified

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/01/07/report-suspect-in-paris-terrorist-attack-served-time-for-al-qaeda-in-iraq-recruitment/