ARMAGEDDON UPDATE: THE MARTYRS
How a scared amateur became a ruthless jihadist in Paris
Mug shots of the Kouachi brothers.
PARIS: In the year after the US invasion of Iraq, a 22-year-old pizza deliveryman here couldn't take it anymore. Sickened by images of US soldiers humiliating Muslims at the Abu Ghraib prison, he made plans to go fight US forces. He studied a virtual AK-47 on a website. Then he took lessons from a man, using a hand-drawn picture of a gun.
It was an almost laughable attempt at jihad, and as the day of his departure approached, the deliveryman, Cherif Kouachi, felt increasingly unsure of himself.
When the police arrested him hours before his 6:45am Alitalia flight on Jan 25, 2005, he was relieved. "Several times, I felt like pulling out. I didn't want to die there," he later told investigators. "I told myself that if I chickened out, they would call me a coward, so I decided to go anyway, despite the reservations I had."
A decade later, Cherif Kouachi, flanked by his older brother Said, 34, no longer had any reservations, as the two jihadis in black, sheathed in body armor, gave a global audience a ruthless demonstration in terror.
It was an almost laughable attempt at jihad, and as the day of his departure approached, the deliveryman, Cherif Kouachi, felt increasingly unsure of himself.
When the police arrested him hours before his 6:45am Alitalia flight on Jan 25, 2005, he was relieved. "Several times, I felt like pulling out. I didn't want to die there," he later told investigators. "I told myself that if I chickened out, they would call me a coward, so I decided to go anyway, despite the reservations I had."
A decade later, Cherif Kouachi, flanked by his older brother Said, 34, no longer had any reservations, as the two jihadis in black, sheathed in body armor, gave a global audience a ruthless demonstration in terror.
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