Connecting the plots

Saïd and Chérif Kouachi claimed to work for al-Qaeda in Yemen, while Amedy Coulibaly said he belonged to the Islamic State. But the network of terrorist ties of the three killers behind January attacks in Paris—pointing all the way back to 9/11—have much to say about the tangled web of militant Islamic jihadism.

And while terrorist groups are allegedly splintering into opposing factions, the Paris attack shows how multiple allegiances can lead to one deadly killing spree.

Fourteen days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, British authorities over two days raided what became known as the Leicester terror cell run by Algerian militants. From their rundown terrace homes in the English Midlands, the al-Qaeda operatives raised hundreds of thousands of dollars via fraudulent credit cards. They forged passports and distributed funds to recruit and train for al-Qaeda attacks, including 9/11.

Two Algerians, Brahim Benmerzouga and Baghdad Meziane, were arrested and would be jailed for years on terror charges. Djamel Beghal, a close friend of theirs and also an Algerian, was already in detention at the time of the raid—held in Dubai for using a false passport (as he was trying to reach an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan).

Beghal, reportedly a leader of al-Qaeda in Europe, would spend the next decade in and out of jail on terrorism-related charges. He worked out of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, run by the radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza.

Hamza discipled in jihadism Richard Reid, the shoe bomber who tried to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight in December 2001. It was Beghal who allegedly recruited for al-Qaeda at Finsbury Park both Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the convicted “20th hijacker” in the 9/11 attacks. In Dubai custody, he admitted also to a plot to bomb the U.S. embassy in Paris.

Abu Hamza, notably, was sentenced in a New York City federal court for his terrorist activities on Friday, Jan. 9—the same day the Kouachi brothers began a final siege in an industrial area of Paris, and the day also Coulibaly took hostages in a kosher supermarket, where he killed four. All three knew Beghal and nursed their terrorist plans through Hamza’s Finsbury Park Mosque mafia.

Chérif Kouachi along with Coulibaly met Beghal in a prison in France in 2005—all serving time in the same jail on terrorism charges. Both Kouachi and Coulibaly, who is from Mali, were apt recruits for Beghal, and by 2010 all three had been released.

They began at that time plotting a new attack in Europe—a plot that led to their rearrests. French authorities sentenced Beghal to 12 years. Coulibaly also was jailed, but released sometime last year, while Chérif Kouachi wasn’t convicted due to lack of evidence.

Meanwhile Chérif’s brother Saïd had visited Yemen to study in 2009. There he met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “underwear bomber” who attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009. The two shared an apartment for several weeks in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital.

Given their history it’s not surprising the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly were long under surveillance by counterterrorism officers in France. But that watch was dropped in mid-2014, as authorities shifted focus to hundreds of young Muslim men cycling back and forth to Syria. “The system is overwhelmed,” French terrorism expert Jean-Charles Brisard told The New York Times.

By the end of Jan. 9, two days after the Charlie Hebdo attack and with 17 killed, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, along with Amedy Coulibaly, were dead. That same day in New York, Abu Hamza received a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. Djamel Beghal, his partner in crime starting at the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, remains in a prison in central France. The Algerian Brahim Benmerzouga was deported to Algeria, where he lives with his family according to his London lawyer. Baghdad Meziane, who successfully fought British efforts to deport him, is at large, his whereabouts unknown.

Photos: Benmerzouga & Meziane: Handout • Beghal & Chérif: Handout • Saïd: Prefecture de Police de Paris/AP • Coulibaly: AP • Abdulmutallab: U.S. Marshals/Gettu Images • Hamza: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images