That exceptional situation was a terrorist rampage that was years in the works, an AQAP leader said in a video, claiming U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was the mastermind. Al-Awlaki was the terror group’s spokesman before a U.S. drone strike killed him in Yemen in 2011.
As intelligence analysts try to piece together whether the gunmen who attacked the satirical magazine met al-Awaki on trips to Yemen — a theory that could be bolstered by the new video’s claim — France’s ultimate response will be colored by numerous factors.
Why deploy the Charles de Gaulle to Yemen?
An invasion of Yemen is unlikely.
“In terms of international engagement and what’s happening in Yemen, the United States has been engaged in drone strikes for a number of years,” says David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and a professor of public policy at Duke University. “I would think the United States is doing about everything that could be done in Yemen.”
Of France’s deployment of the Charles de Gaulle, Schanzer said: “I don’t know how much of this is symbolic or adding to capability. I just have my doubts.”
In fact, Schanzer wrote in an op-ed piece this week, France and the United States have been on a “war footing” against terrorism for nearly 14 years.
–
Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, who authorities say carried out the Charlie Hebdo shootings, were killed during a standoff northeast of Paris last week.
The brothers were French citizens known to the country’s security services, according to officials. One spent time in jail for ties to terrorism, and was in Syria as recently as this summer, according to a French source. The other went to Yemen for training, officials say.
Before they were killed during a shootout with French security forces, one of the brothers spoke on the phone to a journalist from the French news network BFM.
“We are just telling you that we are the defenders of Prophet Mohammed,” he said. “I was sent, me, Cherif Kouachi, by al Qaeda in Yemen. I went there and Sheikh Anwar Al-Awlaki financed my trip… before he was killed.”
Cherif Kouachi, the younger of the brothers, was arrested by French authorities in 2005 when he was about to leave to fight in Iraq. He planned to travel to Iraq via Syria. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 2008.
Schanzer wrote: “The key steps France needs to take to address the current threat have everything to do with expanding domestic counterterrorism and little to do with the tools of war.”
