Cherif
Kouachi (right in photo) -- one of the two main suspects in the Paris
attacks -- had a long history of jihad and said he wanted to "combat
the Americans."
In a 400-page
court record, Cherif Kouachi was described as wanting to travel to Iraq
through Syria "to go and combat the Americans."
On Friday, security forces surrounded and
killed Kouachi, 32, and his older brother, Said, 34, in
Dammartin-en-Goele, France, the town's mayor said. The Kouachi brothers
were wanted in Wednesday's massacre at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris that left 12 people dead.
In
French court documents from 2007, Cherif Kouachi stated in a
deposition, "I was ready to go and die in battle," and "I got this idea
when I saw the injustices shown by television on what was going on over
there. I am speaking about the torture that the Americans have inflicted
on the Iraqis."
The court documents --
dated December 2007 -- stem from a 2005 arrest. They say Cherif Kouachi
was raised in orphanages and foster homes from a young age, and became
involved in a group in Paris' 19th arrondissement. He was arrested with
other young men from that part of Paris for a conspiracy to go to Iraq
and fight as jihadists.
In the documents CNN obtained in
conjunction with French newsmagazine L'Express, prosecutors outlined
strong details of Kouachi's interest in jihad, interest in martyrdom and
strong links to anti-Semitism, attacking and killing Jews.
Kouachi
stated he came to the idea of jihad through Farid Benyettou, a
well-known spiritual leader who's been long associated in France with
supporting jihad and terrorism, and is associated with a mosque in the
19th arrondissement.
Through
Benyettou, Kouachi was studying how to wield arms and use Kalashnikovs.
Under a section titled "Motivations of Influence" describing Kouachi,
court records said he stated "the wise leaders in Islam told him and his
friends that if they die as martyrs in jihad they would go to heaven"
and "that martyrs would be greeted by more than 60 virgins in a big
palace in heaven."
The documents also
said, "(F)or him any place on earth where there is such an injustice is
justification for jihad; what was going on Iraq was in his eyes such an
injustice."
The mosque, called La Mosquee de Stalingrad, has since been demolished and appears to be under construction.
Court
records show Kouachi said he didn't consider himself a good enough
Muslim, and said he had only been to the mosque two or three times
before he met Benyettou, and he had been smoking cannabis.
Kouachi
told investigators he committed himself to the idea of jihad during
Ramadan in 2004. He told his friends he was going to Syria to fight.
The
documents say when police interviewed his accomplices they stated that
Kouachi "said he was ready to firebomb and to destroy Jewish shops in
Paris."
When officials confronted
Kouachi with that information, he told them "that's not exactly what I
said. ... I don't hide having proposed anti-Semitic ideas, but I would
note that I never really would have done that."
Charlie Hebdo attack: Helicopters hunt for suspects in woods of France
Authorities
believe that Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, entered a wooded
area on foot, the sources told CNN's Chris Cuomo. Now investigators are
using helicopters equipped with night vision tools to try to find them,
the sources said.
Earlier Thursday, a
police helicopter glimpsed what investigators believed to be the
fugitives in the same area, near Crepy-en-Valois, France.
Said Kouachi, left, and Cherif Kouachi are suspects in the Paris attack.
Police
flooded the region, with heavily armed officers canvassing the
countryside and forests in search of the killers. They came after a gas
station attendant reportedly said the armed brothers threatened him near
Villers-Cotterets in Picardy, stole gas and food, then drove off late
Thursday morning.
About 10 kilometers
(6 miles) from the gas station, police blocked a rural country road
leading to the French village of Longpont. Authorities have not
commented in any detail, but pictures showed heavily armed police
officers with shields and helmets in the blocked-off area.
Hours later, a CNN team witnessed a convoy of 30 to 40 police vehicles leaving a site near Longpont.
Prime
Minister Manuel Valls put the Picardy region on the highest alert
level, that same level that the entire Ile-de-France region, including
Paris, is already under.
As the search for the suspects intensified, details emerged about their past travels -- and possible training abroad.
The
United States was given information from the French intelligence agency
that Said Kouachi traveled to Yemen as late as 2011 on behalf of the al
Qaeda affiliate there, a U.S. official told CNN.
Once in Yemen, he received a variety of weapons training from al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula, including on how to fire weapons, the official
said.
In addition to Picardy, other parts of France have also been under scrutiny.
Earlier
Thursday, a gunman -- dressed in black and wearing what appeared to be a
bulletproof vest, just like those who attacked the Charlie Hebdo
offices -- shot and killed a female police officer in the Paris suburb
of Montrouge. A municipal official was seriously wounded in that attack,
France's interior minister said. One person was arrested, Paris Deputy
Mayor Patrick Klugman said, though it's not known whether the shooter is
still at large.
Authorities have
called that a terror attack, but they haven't outright connected it to
Wednesday's slaying of 12 at the satirical magazine's Paris
headquarters.
Latest updates at 6:40 p.m. ET
•
A U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that the Kouachi brothers were
in the U.S. database of known or suspected international terrorists,
known as TIDE, and also had been on the no-fly list for years.
• One
of the brothers suspected in the Charlie Hebdo attack traveled to Yemen
in 2005, France's justice minister told CNN on Thursday. Justice
Minister Christiane Taubira did not specify which brother had traveled
to Yemen.
• An ISIS
radio broadcast Thursday praised the attackers, calling them "brave
jihadists." There was no mention of a claim of responsibility for the
attack.
• Paris' iconic Eiffel Tower went dark at 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET) in remembrance of the victims of Wednesday's attack.
Charlie Hebdo to publish next Wednesday
While its business is satire, Charlie Hebdo has been the subject of serious venom.
That includes its publication of cartoons lampooning the Muslim prophet, Mohammed, which some found very offensive.
The magazine's offices were fire-bombed after that in 2011, on the same day the magazine was due to release an issue with a cover that appeared to poke fun at Islamic law.
It
was attacked again Wednesday, when two masked men entered its offices
not far from the famed Notre Dame Cathedral and the Place de la
Bastille.
On
their way into the building, they asked exactly where the offices were.
The men reportedly spoke fluent French with no accent.
They
barged in on the magazine's staff, while they were gathered for a
lunchtime editorial meeting. The gunmen separated the men from the women
and called out the names of cartoonists they intended to kill, said Dr.
Gerald Kierzek, a physician who treated wounded patients and spoke with
survivors.
The shooting was not a random spray of bullets, but more of a precision execution, he said.
The
two said they were avenging the Prophet Mohammed and shouted "Allahu
akbar," which translates to "God is great," Paris Prosecutor Francois
Molins said.
Cell phone cameras caught the two gunmen
as they ran back out of the building, still firing. One of them ran up
to a wounded police officer lying on a sidewalk and shot him
point-blank.
It was the deadliest attack in Europe since July 2011, when Anders Behring Brevik killed 77 people in attacks on government buildings in Oslo, Norway, and at a youth camp on the island of Utoya.
But
it won't stop Charlie Hebdo. Pelloux told CNN affiliate BFMTV that
thousands of copies of the magazine will be published next Wednesday.
Proceeds from the issue will go to victims' families, France's Le Monde
newspaper reported.
'It was their only mistake'
Police
hunting for the Kouachi brothers have searched their supposed
residences in a number of towns, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve
said.
The two masked men apparently
left behind a getaway car, which police impounded. Investigators found
Said Kouachi's identification card inside the car as they combed it for
evidence, Cazeneuve said.
"It was their
only mistake," said Dominique Rizet, BFMTV's police and justice
consultant, reporting that the discovery helped the investigation.
The Kouachi brothers returned from Syria in the summer, USA Today reported, without saying where it got the information.
Officials were running their names through databases to look for connections with ISIS and al Qaeda. The suspects were known to security services, Prime Minister Valls said.
A
third suspect, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, turned himself in to police, a
source close to the case told the AFP news agency. In French media and
on social media, classmates of Mourad, who is in his final year of high
school, said he was with them at school at the time of the attack.
Cazeneuve said that nine people overall have been detained in connection with the Charlie Hebdo attack.
But that doesn't necessarily mean authorities are any closer to Cherif and Said Kouachi.
'Parisians will not be afraid'
The
victims' names were splashed Thursday across newspapers as heroes for
freedom of expression. "Liberty assassinated." "We are all Charlie
Hebdo," the headlines blared.
They
included two police officers, Stephane Charbonnier -- a cartoonist and
the magazine's editor, known as "Charb" -- and three other well-known
cartoonists known by the pen names Cabu, Wolinski and Tignous. Autopsies
on the victims were underway Thursday, Cazeneuve said.
Flags
flew at half-staff on public buildings and events were canceled
Thursday, a national day of mourning. Crowds gathered in the rain in
Paris in the victims' honor, many holding up media credentials and broke
into applause as the silence ended. The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral
tolled across the city.
"I can't
remember such a day since 9/11," said Klugman, Paris' deputy mayor. "The
country really is in a kind of shutdown in respect and memory of the 12
people killed."
The day earlier, thousands poured into streets in hordes
in a show of solidarity, holding up pens and chanting, "We are
Charlie!" Similar demonstrations took place in cities in addition to
Paris, including Rome, Berlin and Barcelona.
According to Klugman, "Parisians will not be afraid."
On Thursday, Brown released a statement challenging reports by People and TMZ that family gathered at Emory University Hospital to say goodbye to Bobbi Kristina.
