After a few days of hunting, french police finally have 32-year-old Cherif Kouachi and 34-year-old Said Kouachi cornered in a printing company Northeast of Paris. The two men are believed to be responsible for the massacre at Charlie Hebdo's offices on Wednesday that left 12 people dead. The brothers are reportedly involved in a standoff with police and have taken at least one hostage. They also have no intention of surrendering, instead saying that they "want to die as martyrs."
Both men are familiar to both French and U.S. authorities and they are on the terror watch list and the American no-fly list. One was convicted of terrorism charges back in 2008 while the other actually trained in Yemen for a while alongside of al-Qaeda operatives. They are speaking, by phone with helmeted French SWAT team members with no resolution in sight just yet as the entire area remains on lock down.
Cherif and Said Kouachi are believed to have carried out the worst terrorist attack in France in 50 years by storming the offices of Charlie Hebdo and looking for particular people by name and then killing them. Extremist Muslim groups have had the satirical newspaper on their radar for years because of their depictions of Islam. Satire is rooted in making fun of established political and religious groups and the publication wasn't going to avoid poking fun of extremists' even after their offices were fire bombed back in 2010.
The French media is pulling together to make sure that a new issue of the newspaper is out next week right on time so while many of the staff members may have lost their lives, Charlie Hebdo is not dead. In the meantime, French SWAT team members really want to take these guys alive so that they can get intel out of them. Do you think that it'll end up happening that way or are they going to die first?
