2015 Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack

Overview

Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack was a mass shooting that took place inside and near the headquarters building of the French weekly satirical news magazine in Paris in early January 2015, which resulted in the deaths of at least 12 people, including many staff journalists and cartoonists, as well as police officers, and left many more wounded. Following the attack, the unknown group of armed assailants fled the scene and the suspects were eventually tracked down and killed by the GIGN following an hostage situation two days after the tragedy.

Background

At around 11.30 a.m (GMT+1) on January 7th, 2015, two hooded men equipped with Kalashnikov rifles stormed the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a French left-wing satirical weekly newspaper that has been in active circulation since 1970, and opened fire, killing at least two police officers and ten employees^[1], including the two most senior cartoonists and co-founders of the newspaper, Jean Cabut (better known as Cabu) and Georges Wollinsky, as well as the publication's director Stéphane Charbonnier (Charb) and renowned cartoonist Bernard Verlhac (Tignous). In a cellphone video footage of the attack captured by a witness who took refuge on the rooftops of a nearby building (shown below), at least two armed attackers dressed in black were seen shooting firearms in the middle of an empty street while yelling "Allahu Ackbar" (Arabic: "God is greater"), while in another video footage of the scene, one of the armed assailants was apparently heard yelling "[they] avenged the Prophet Muhammad."^[2]

Notable Development

Images From the Scene

Online Reaction

On Twitter, the hashtag #Jesuischarlie (I am Charlie), created by Stylist magazine journalist Joachim Roncin^[5] was launched for netizens to show their support for the victims^[3]. The Facebook page "Je suis Charlie" has gained more than 240,000 likes in the first 24 hours, calling for peaceful demonstrations everywhere in France and through out the world^[7][13], as well as inviting everyone to change their profile avatar to a picture of "Je suis Charlie". On the night of January 7th, French news outlets reported that thousands of demonstrators took their grievance against senseless violence to the streets in many cities and towns across the country.^[11]

Along with the hasthag, another, #JeSuisPolicier" (I Am a Police Officer) was introduced to pay tribute to the two police officers who died on duty that day^[12].

More information on this peculiar phenomenon can be found in the KYM entry for Je Suis Charlie.

Official Response

As soon as the attack was acknowledged by the French government, president François Hollande made a speech condemning it, expressing his shock, mourning the tragic loss of lives and organizing a meeting to reevaluate France's vigipirate plans to defend the country against foreign threats^[8] (shown below).

International Reactions

Within hours of the ordeal, several news sites relayed public statements from countries around the world, especially from the US White House and John Kerry^[4][9]. It also includes several Muslim organizations (such as the French CFCM) and Muslim netizens speaking against the attack and condemning it^[10] (shown below).

Homage from Google

Google paid tribute to the victims by creating a doodle displaying a black ribbon on the front of its search homepage^[6] (shown below). On January 8th, the ribbon was replaced with the black picture "Je suis Charlie".

#OpCharlieHebdo

On January 8th, a Belgian contingent of Anonymous uploaded a video to its YouTube channel^[16] condemning the attack and announcing the launch of #OpCharlieHebdo, a retaliatory cyberattack campaign aimed at identifying and shutting down websites and social media accounts that are known to be affiliated with various terrorist organizations (shown below, left). Within the first 24 hours of upload, the video gained more than 1.3 million views. On January 10th, a French contingent of the hacktivists issued their own video communique via YouTube with a similar message (shown below, right).

On January 10th, an ad-hoc Twitter feed for #OpCharlieHebdo tweeted a "tango down" notice for ansar-alhaqq.net (shown below), a website that has been described as an outlet for a French jihadist group. According to Mashable, the website was inaccessible for over an hour after the announcement, though it eventually returned online shortly thereafter.

Outcome

Dammartin-en-Goële Siege

After 48 hours of intensive manhunt operations across France, the two armed men identified as brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi entranched themselves in a printing house in Dammartin-en-goële, a town located around 40km north-east of Paris, trapping an employee inside who hid under cardboard boxes during the whole situation. After nine hours of stand-off with the police, the French GIGN stormed the building at around 5 p.m (GMT+1), killed the two brothers and freed the man^[14].

Porte de Vincennes Hostage Crisis

On January 8th, an armed and bullet-vested man fired on two police officers in Montrouge, France, killing one. On the following day, the same man, who was later identified as 32-year-old factory worker Amedy Coulibaly and an acquaintance of the two brother suspects^[15], attacked a Jewish deli in Vincennes (located 7 km east of Paris), killing four people and taking many more hostage. At around 5 p.m (GMT+1), the French anti-terrorist police force RAID stormed the shop and killed the attacker; four people were wounded during the attack (shown below). Coulibaly's female accomplice, Hayat Boumeddiene, still remains at large and is heavily sought after by the French authorities.

External References