theweek | Chérif Kouachi was born in 1980 in Paris' diverse 10th
arrondissement, which stretches from the Place de la République to the
Gare du Nord. He was one of five children of Algerian immigrant parents.
A source who knew Chérif Kouachi when he was arrested on his way to
catch the flight to Damascus in 2005 said, "He was abandoned very young;
it's not clear if his parents couldn't look after the children or if
his parents died. But he was put in care homes early — before the age of
10." The care homes were far from Paris, and his childhood was
described as chaotic.
When he reached 18, he returned to the northeast of Paris with his
elder brother. He had a sports education qualification but a poor school
record and no other family support. When he became involved in the
Buttes-Chaumont group of friends, he was back in Paris but living
precariously.
"He was living almost like a homeless person, staying with someone,
but it was more of a mattress on the floor than a real home," the source
said. "He was very clearly marginalized. He was immature, just out of
adolescence. He wasn't vindictive…He went to the mosque, but went
clubbing, made rap music, smoked hash, drank. He wasn't a hermit."
It seemed at the time that Benyettou, the young guru figure by whom
Kouachi was enthralled, used methods similar to those of a sect. "He
made him feel important; he listened to him, recognized him as an
individual…Chérif Kouachi was fragile, looking for a family…He didn't
have a family he could turn to for support," the source said.
When he was arrested over the attempted flight to Syria and Iraq,
Kouachi described himself to investigators as a "ghetto Muslim,"
according to Le Monde. "Before, I was a delinquent. But after, I
felt great. I didn't even imagine that I could die," he told the court. A
French TV documentary on radicalized youth showed footage of him
rapping. "It's written in the texts that it's good to die as a martyr,"
he said.
The Buttes-Chaumont group's jihadi aspirations were directly linked
to the second Iraq War, in 2003. They would sit in apartments watching
footage of the U.S.-led invasion. "Everything I saw on TV, the torture
in Abu Ghraib prison, all that, that's what motivated me," one of
Kouachi's friends later said at trial.
But under Jacques Chirac, France had refused to intervene in the Iraq
War, and the young cell's stance wasn't really a movement against the
French state. It was more a rage directed against the U.S. Some of the
group stated that jihad wasn't done in France. The focal point was
fighting a foreign invader in Iraq.
