On Wednesday 7 January, a black Citroen C3 drove up to the Charlie Hebdo building in Rue Nicolas-Appert. Two masked gunmen, dressed in black and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles got out and approached the offices. They went into number 6, Rue Nicolas-Appert, then realized that htye had the wrong address. They then moved down the street to number 10 - where the Charlie Hebdo offices are on the second floor.
Once inside, the men, now known to be brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, asked maintenance staff in reception where the magazine's offices were, before shooting dead caretaker Frederic Boisseau.
The gunmen threatened one of the magazine's cartoonists and forced her to enter the code to get in. They killed the editor's bodyguard, then asked for four cartoonists by name and killed them along with three other editorial staff and a guest that was at the weekly meeting that was taking place when this happened.
Witnesses said they had heard the gunmen shouting "We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad" and "God is Great" in Arabic while calling out the names of the journalists.
Police, alerted to a shooting incident, arrived at the scene as the gunmen were leaving the building.
One police officer was killed.
As police continued their search for the Charlie Hebdo attack suspects, a lone gunman shot two people in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge.
The gunman, armed with a machine-gun and a pistol, shot dead a policewoman and injured a man before fleeing. The French authorities initially dismissed any suggestion of a link between the shooting and the Charlie Hebdo killings, but later confirmed the two were connected.
On Friday, the men were killed and two police officers were injured.
Meanwhile, a gunman took several people hostage at a kosher supermarket at Porte de Vincennes in the east of Paris after a shootout. Police quickly surrounded the building.
All in all, 17 people were killed because of this.
Frankly, I would not feel completely safe at all traveling to Paris right now. Although, if it was absolutely necessary, I would be alright with it. This was a planned out attack on a specific place, not just a random shooting.
Was there anything that could have been to done to prevent this tragedy?
ReplyDeletewhens is their trial?
ReplyDeleteIt is so sad that 17 people were killed because a group of extremists got offended. They took it way to far, the people of Paris and throughout the world need to stand up against these terrorists, and show them that they can not get away with this type of terrorism. I agree, unless it was absolutely necessary, I would not want travel to Paris.
ReplyDeleteSo when are things like this going to end. Why was the newspaper place the one targeted , they were only speaking facts.
ReplyDeleteI hope these doesn't put innocent peace loving Muslims in danger.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that Charlie Hebdo response to the attack was correct
ReplyDelete