January 2015 Île-de-France attacks

Île-de-France attacks
Location	Charlie Hebdo shooting: 10 Rue Nicolas-Appert, 11th arrondissement of Paris, France Dammartin-en-Goële hostage crisis: Dammartin-en-Goële, France Fontenay-aux-Roses shooting: Fontenay-aux-Roses, France Montrouge shooting: Corner of Avenue Pierre Brossolette and Avenue de la Paix in Montrouge, France Porte de Vincennes siege: Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, Paris, France
Date	7 January 2015 (2015-01-07) 11:30 CET –9 January 2015 (2015-01-09) 18:35 CET (UTC+01:00)
Target	Charlie Hebdo employees, police officers, and citizens in and around Paris
Attack type	Mass shooting, terrorism, hostage crisis
Weapons	AK-47 assault rifles Pump action shotgun M80 Zolja Škorpion vz. 61 submachine gun Two Tokarev pistols
Deaths	20 total: 8 employees, 2 police officers, and 2 others at Charlie Hebdo shooting 1 police officer at Montrouge shooting 2 gunmen at Dammartin-en-Goële hostage crisis 4 hostages and 1 gunman at Porte de Vincennes siege
Injured	22 total: 11 people at Charlie Hebdo shooting 1 civilian at Fontenay-aux-Roses shooting 1 bystander at Montrouge shooting 6 hostages and 3 police officers at Porte de Vincennes siege
Perpetrators	Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, Amedy Coulibaly

From 11:30 CET on 7 January to 18:35 CET on 9 January 2015, a series of five Terrorist attacks occurred across the Île-de-France region, particularly in Paris. The attacks killed a total of 17 people, in addition to the three perpetrators, and wounded 22 others. A fifth shooting attack did not result in any fatalities. The group that claims responsibility for the attacks, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, claimed that the attack had been planned for years ahead.

The attacks began on 7 January, when two gunmen attacked the headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing twelve people and injuring twelve others before escaping. On 9 January, police tracked the assailants to an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goële, where they took a hostage. Another gunman also shot a police officer on 8 January and took hostages the next day, at a kosher supermarket near the Porte de Vincennes. GIGN (a special operations unit of the French Armed Forces), combined with RAID and BRI (special operations units of the French Police), conducted simultaneous raids in Dammartin and at Porte de Vincennes. Three attackers were killed, along with four hostages who died in the Vincennes supermarket before the intervention; some other hostages were injured. A fourth suspect is still on the run. At the time, the attacks were the deadliest act of terrorism in France since the 1961 Vitry-Le-François train bombing by the Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS). It was surpassed just ten months later by the November 2015 Paris attacks.

Background

Memorials for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting (above) and Porte de Vincennes siege (below)

In December 2014, three attacks occurred in a span of three days.

The first attack occurred in Joué-lès-Tours, in which a knife-wielding man attacked a police station, injuring three officers before being killed.

The second attack occurred in Dijon, in which a man used a vehicle to run over eleven pedestrians in several areas of the city before being arrested.

The third attack occurred in Nantes, in which a second vehicular attack at a Christmas market left ten people injured, one of them fatally, while the driver was arrested after attempting suicide.

Although all three attacks were deemed unrelated with one another, the French government heightened the nation's security and deployed 300 soldiers to patrol the nation's streets.

Attacks

Charlie Hebdo shooting

Main article: Charlie Hebdo shooting

Police officers, emergency vehicles, and journalists at the scene two hours after the shooting at Charlie Hebdo

The first and deadliest of the attacks occurred at 11:30 CET on January 7,2015 at the Charlie Hebdo offices; a satirical magazine facility. Two gunmen, identified as Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, entered the building and fatally shot eight employees, two police officers, and two others, and injured eleven other people. The perpetrators fled the scene following the shooting. The primary motive behind the shooting is said to be the Charlie Hebdo cartoons making fun of numerous Islamic leaders. The shooting received widespread condemnation internationally and a National Day of Mourning was held in France on 8 January.

Fontenay-aux-Roses and Montrouge shootings

On 7 January, a few hours after the Charlie Hebdo attack, a third assailant in the attacks, Amedy Coulibaly, shot a 32-year-old man who was out jogging in Fontenay-aux-Roses, in a park next to Coulibaly's home. The man suffered injuries to his arm and back and as of 11 January was in critical condition. Five shell casings were found at the scene. Coulibaly was linked to this shooting after the shell casings were compared to shell casings found at the Porte de Vincennes hostage crisis.

On 8 January, Coulibaly shot and killed municipal police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe at the junction of Avenue Pierre Brossolette and Avenue de la Paix in Montrouge (a suburb of Paris), and critically wounded a street sweeper.

Dammartin-en-Goële hostage crisis

Further information: Charlie Hebdo shooting § Dammartin-en-Goële hostage crisis

On 9 January, the assailants of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, went to the office of Création Tendance Découverte, a signage production company on an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goële. Inside the building were owner Michel Catalano and a male employee, 26-year-old graphics designer Lilian Lepère. During the siege, Lepère was told by Catalano to hide inside the refectory. Throughout the crisis, the perpetrators were unaware that Lepère was in the building. During the siege, a salesman named Didier went to the building on business, and Catalano left his office which he had been hiding in. Both were confronted by the perpetrators and asked to leave. Didier realized that they were terrorists and went to alert the authorities.

Catalano returned to the building and helped one of the perpetrators who had been injured in earlier gunfire. He was allowed to leave after an hour. After this, Lepère, who was hiding in a cardboard box, alerted authorities about the incident. The siege ended after nine hours at 16:30 after police stormed the building and killed both assailants.

Porte de Vincennes siege

The Hypercacher kosher supermarket after the attack.

Main article: Porte de Vincennes siege

Also on 9 January, Coulibaly, armed with a Škorpion vz. 61 submachine gun, a vz. 58 assault rifle, and two Russian-made Tokarev pistols, entered a Hypercacher kosher supermarket at Porte de Vincennes in east Paris. He killed four people and took several hostages. He had a female accomplice, speculated to be his wife, Hayat Boumeddiene. Coulibaly was reportedly in contact with the Kouachi brothers as the sieges progressed, and told police that he would kill hostages if the brothers were harmed.

Police stormed the grocery store and gunned down Coulibaly. Fifteen hostages were rescued. Several people were wounded during the incident. Lassana Bathily, a Muslim shop assistant born in Mali, was hailed as a hero in the crisis for risking his life to hide people from the gunman in a downstairs refrigerator room and assisting police after his escape.

Other incidents

Cyber attacks

French media have reported that hackers breached the security of French municipality websites during the Île-de-France attacks, changing them to display jihadist propaganda. The French Defense Ministry and security bodies have reported that about 19,000 French websites have been targeted by an unprecedented wave of denial-of-service attacks following the publication of Charlie Hebdo with a depiction of Muhammad on the cover. The websites of French businesses, religious groups, universities and municipalities have also been altered to display pro-Islamist messages.

Incidents at mosques

In the week after the shooting, the organisation "L'Observatoire contre l'islamophobie du Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM)" called for strengthening of the surveillance of mosques, and the French interior department has reported that there were 54 anti-Muslim incidents reported in France in one week after the shootings, compared to 110 complaints in the first nine months of 2014. These included 21 reports of shootings and blank grenade throwing at Islamic buildings including mosques, and 33 cases of threats and insults. Three blank grenades were thrown at a mosque in Le Mans, west of Paris, and a bullet hole was found in its windows. A Muslim prayer hall in the Port-la-Nouvelle was also fired at. There was an explosion at a restaurant affiliated to a mosque in Villefranche-sur-Saone. No casualties were reported.

See also

• List of Islamist terrorist attacks
• List of terrorist incidents in France
• 2015 TV5Monde cyber-attack
• November 2015 Paris attacks
• 2014 Tours stabbing attack
• Terrorism in the European Union