Advertisement

Convoluted rivalries complicate Paris attack probe

The suspects, three of whom were killed in gun battles with police, maintain allegiance to both al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

By Ed Adamczyk
People gather at a memorial site, near the offices of Charlie Hebdo, to lay flowers, light candles and mourn for the victims of the terror attack on the weekly newspaper in Paris. Photo by Maya Vidon-White/UPI
People gather at a memorial site, near the offices of Charlie Hebdo, to lay flowers, light candles and mourn for the victims of the terror attack on the weekly newspaper in Paris. Photo by Maya Vidon-White/UPI | License Photo

PARIS, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- Unraveling the motives behind the terrorist acts in Paris is complicated by allegiance, history and rival Islamic militant groups.

A video released this week and produced by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of several al-Qaida affiliates, claims credit for "the blessed Battle of Paris" in which a total of 20 people died in the Jan. 7 assault on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and related attacks. Senior AQAP leader Nasr Ibn Ali al-Ansi is seen announcing his group was deeply involved in the planning and execution of the attack. He called brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, the shooters at the magazine, "heroes of Islam," mentioning the favorable concurrence that the "operation" of Amedy Coulibaly, killed in a shootout at a Paris kosher restaurant, coincided with the Kouachis' attack.

Advertisement

Coulibaly, prior to his death, pledged allegiance to the Islamic Front, formerly an al-Qaida franchise and now a rival to al-Qaida's power to recruit militants. If the Paris attacks are related, it would be the first recent example of foreign collaboration by IS and the any branch of al-Qaida.

Advertisement

In the video, Ansi says U.S.-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awiaki helped plan the attack, although he died in a U.S. drone strike in 2011.

"They are claiming that the attack was ordered by Awlaki before he was killed, so that's a four-year delay that doesn't quite make sense. I think this is more aspirational in many ways, and terrorists groups do like taking credit for events that they may or may not have actually been responsible for," said Barbara Bodine, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen.

IS, for all its organization, condones freelancers acting in it name, and Coulibaly appears to be in that category. It, and al-Qaida, have different goals, although IS, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a colleague and eventual rival of Osama bin Laden began with al-Qaida in Iraq in 2000. Al-Qaida's concentration was on fighting Western powers; IS, described as "a kind of Sunni Foreign Legion," had in mind an inter-Islam Sunni-Shiite conflict that could lead to a Sunni caliphate in the Middle East, the splintered political terrain of Iraq its best hope.

A Muslim civil war would lead to a Sunni Muslim superpower, the IS reasoning holds.

Advertisement

The two groups compete for recruits and for financial assistance of Persian Gulf donors, and have fought one another: the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian al-Qaida affiliate, has seen combat against IS in Syria, although there are reports al-Qaida and IS have improved relations since the start of aerial bombings in Syria and Iraq by the U.S.-led coalition.

IS supporters now claim Hayat Boumeddine, Coulibaly's partner in the Paris restaurant attack, escaped France to an IS-controlled area of Syria, the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks Islamic militant activity, reported.

Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi shared a Paris jail in 2005 and came under the political influence of Djamet Beghal, an Algerian imprisoned for plotting to detonate explosives at the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

While investigators sort out the connections, no matter how loose, in the Paris attacks, al-Qaida and IS, and their dueling allegiances, offer an indication of how little their rivalry is manifested in their recruits.

"A lot of this isn't about doctrine and theory, but empowering young men to go off and fight a world that they and their peers find objectionable," said Jon Alterman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It's not about dotting the i's or crossing the t's in theory, or deeply indoctrinating people in theology. It's about fighting."

Advertisement

Latest Headlines