“CHARLIE HEBDO ATTACK WAS NOT
TOTALLY UNEXPECTED BY THE FRENCH PRESS”
BY ABDULMUMINI ADEKU
A key African Journalist who has practiced in the city of Paris for up to two decades has disclosed
exclusively that they were not totally surprised
about the recent killings at Charlie Hebdo.
In an exclusive interview conducted via a phone interview
through an interpreter and intermediary ,Mr Cyprian said that the media firm
had been on the search light of the French intelligence services for long
because of the threat messages that some of the editors were receiving from
fundamentalists .
While praying for the soul of the departed ,he said the
entire French Press resident in Paris were still in shock over the shooting
which led to at least 12 people been killed with 10 reporters reportedly taken
to the morgue as two gun men with guns were seen via video footage wearing face
masks on live television minutes after they carried the execution of the
victims.
Checks by Paedia Express Multimedia at the media Rights Agenda over the
shooting incident did not yield much in Lagos as an official in a terse reply
said that while they were deeply disturbed about the incident could not speak
so much on it since it took place beyond the shores of Nigeria. Two brothers
suspected in a newspaper terror attack were cornered inside a printing house
northeast of Paris on Friday, taking a hostage and telling police they
"want to die as martyrs," a lawmaker said.
Security forces streamed into the
small industrial town near Charles de Gaulle airport in a massive operation to
seize the men suspected of carrying out France's deadliest terror attack in
decades. One of the men had been convicted of terrorism charges in 2008, the
other had visited Yemen and a U.S. official said both brothers were on the
American no-fly list.
Authorities evacuated a nearby
school around midday Friday after the suspects agreed by phone to allow the
children safe passage, Dammartin-en-Goele spokeswoman Audrey Taupenas told The
Associated Press.
"They said they want to die as
martyrs," Yves Albarello, a local lawmaker who said he was inside the
command post, told French television station i-Tele.
The men, Cherif and
Said Kouachi, are believed to be the masked assailants who methodically
opened fire on an editorial meeting of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo,
leaving 12 people dead in central Paris on Wednesday.
A military helicopter flies over
Dammartin-en-Goele on Friday as security forces moved in to capture a pair of
heavily armed suspects wanted for the deadly attack on a satirical newspaper.
(Thibault Camus/Associated Press)
As at least three helicopters
hovered, Charles de Gaulle closed two runways to arrivals to avoid interfering
in the standoff, an airport spokesman said. The town appealed to residents to
stay inside.
The siege in Dammartin-en-Goele
unfolded after the suspects hijacked a car early Friday in a nearby town.
Tens of thousands of French security
forces have mobilized to prevent a new terror attack since the Wednesday
assault on Charlie Hebdo, which decimated the editorial staff, including the
chief editor who had been under armed guard after receiving death threats for
publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. He and his police bodyguard
were the first to die, witnesses have said.
Cherif and Said Kouachi were named
as the chief suspects after Said's identity card was left behind in their
abandoned getaway car. They were holed up Friday inside CTF Creation Tendance
Decouverte, a printing house. Xavier Castaing, the chief Paris police
spokesman, and Taupenas. They said there appeared to be one hostage.
Christelle Alleume, who works across
the street, said a round of gunfire interrupted her coffee break Friday
morning.
"We heard shots and we returned
very fast because everyone was afraid," she told i-Tele. "We had
orders to turn off the lights and not approach the windows."
Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said
both suspects had been known to intelligence services before the attack.
With
files from Associated Press ,CBC News
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