Videos show Paris gunmen were calm as they executed police officer, fled scene

IRBIL, Iraq — The gunmen who
attacked the Paris editorial offices of the French satirical magazine
Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday appeared to be focused professionals who’d
carefully prepared the assault.
Video showing two of the
assailants suggests they were well trained, striking their target during
its weekly editorial meeting, when most of the publication’s
journalists would be gathered in one place.
Other evidence
suggests they could be linked to a top French al Qaida operative, David
Drugeon, who’s been the target at least twice of U.S. airstrikes in
Syria over the last four months.
Witnesses inside the magazine’s
offices told the French newspaper L’Humanité that both attackers spoke
perfect French and claimed to be members of al Qaida.
Drugeon, who
many experts believe was a French intelligence asset before defecting
to al Qaida, is alleged to have masterminded a 2012 “lone wolf” attack
on French soldiers and Jewish targets in the southern French city of
Toulouse. That attack killed seven people before the perpetrator, a
French citizen named Mohammed Merah, who French intelligence believes
had been trained by Drugeon, was killed by a police sniper after a long,
violent standoff with security forces.
Wednesday’s attack
killed at least 10 journalists and two policemen, who’d apparently been
assigned to guard the magazine because of previous threats made against
the publication, including a firebombing in 2011.

The gunmen escaped and
were still at large hours after the attack. French authorities said they
were seeking three people in the attack.
Witnesses speaking to
French television reporters described the attackers as calmly entering
the editorial offices of the magazine during its weekly editorial
meeting, shooting the victims before declaring “Allahu Akbar” and “We
have avenged the prophet,” before quickly and calmly departing the scene
before police could respond.
In three videos of the
aftermath posted on the Internet by witnesses, two masked gunmen can be
seen exiting the building with military efficiency, making coordinated
and precise movements indicative of extensive experience and training.
Commonly referred to by military professionals as “muscle memory,” the
movements reflect the kind of repetitive training that allows someone to
efficiently execute tactical movements and maintain fire discipline and
accurate marksmanship under the stress of combat.
In one series
of photographs, a French police vehicle can be seen with its windshield
riddled with bullets in a fairly tight cluster, a pattern that would be
nearly impossible for a casually trained beginner to produce with the
assault rifles the gunmen were carrying. Though simple to use, the
rifles, a variant of the Russian AK-47, tend to be difficult to control
when fired on full automatic. But the impact pattern on the police
vehicle indicates not just a familiarity with the weapon, but at least a
competent degree of marksmanship.
Another video underscores the
likelihood that the two were experienced fighters. In it, two gunmen
exit the building to board a waiting hatchback sedan when they notice a
policeman down the block attempting to engage them as they escape.
Without hesitation, the two gunmen shoot the officer, then calmly close
on the wounded man as he lies in the street before one of the shooters
fires a round into his head from pointblank range.
Again, the calm
manner in which the wounded man is murdered before the pair return to
the car suggests combat experience or at least extensive training. Both
men move quickly but in a very controlled manner. At one point, the lead
gunman appears to use a common infantry hand signal to summon his
accomplice to his side.
The pair then drive away from the scene,
but not before one of the gunmen picks up an object – possibly a shoe –
that had fallen from the car as the door opened.

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