That’s one challenge for authorities in the wake of this week’s bloodshed in France. Understanding what happened is one thing. Understanding why it happened requires not just knowing the players involved, but also their backgrounds and how they were linked.
And, according to authorities and sources, the links extend between the suspects in the Paris shootings and some of biggest names in the terror world.
They have been tied to two of the world’s biggest and strongest terrorist groups: al Qaeda and ISIS.
The names Cherif Kouachi, Said Kouachi, Amedy Coulibaly and Hayat Boumeddiene are now known around the world, with three of them dead and the fourth — Bourmeddiene — being sought.
Here’s what they did and their relationship to one other.
CHERIF KOUACHI
Who was he?
Like his brother Said, the 32-year-old French citizen of Algerian descent was born in Paris, and raised in orphanages and foster homes from a young age. Reports in French media described him as a rap fan more interested in chasing girls than going to the mosque — at least until he became a student of well-known French spiritual leader Farid Benyettou.
Where did he go?
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A neighbor in a southern Paris suburb said she seemed kind and polite, always wearing a veil and often motoring around on a scooter with her romantic partner Amedy Coulibaly.
Where did she go?
Beyond traveling to Malaysia with Coulibaly, Boumeddiene’s official travel history in recent years is sparse.
Boumeddiene is believed to have left for Turkey “of course to reach Syria” at the beginning of the year, according to a French source close to the nation’s security services.
She was tracked by Turkish authorities to a location near the Turkey-Syria border, according to an official in the Turkish Prime Minister’s office. Boumeddiene arrived at the Istanbul airport on a flight from Madrid on January 2 with a man. During routine screening of passengers, the couple were flagged by Turkey’s Risk Assessment Center and a decision made to maintain surveillance on their movements, the official said.
Who did she know?
Boumeddiene exchanged 500 phone calls with the wife of Cherif Kouachi in 2014, according to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins. The wife told investigators that her husband and Coulibaly knew each other well.
CNN’s Josh Levs, Michael Martinez, Barbara Starr, Nick Paton Walsh, Evan Perez, Lonzo Cook and Deborah Feyerick and journalist Hakim Almasmari contributed to this report.