wow cnn
neighbors so concerned about them they broke into thier apt and saw all sorts of guns and they came back and threatened them and they never came forward until now
more ....
Neighbour says suspects in Paris shooting had cache of arms
When Said and Chérif Kouachi came to pray at their local mosque here in the suburbs north of Paris, they did so quietly and discreetly, saying very little. Except for the time the imam used his Friday sermon to urge worshippers to vote in a coming election.
The older brother [Said] challenged the imam and walked out. He said it was not the imams job to call on Muslims to vote,
Said Kouachis refusal to take part in something as central to being French as voting in an election and his apparent conviction that other Muslims should also boycott the democratic process is just one of many tales that suggested the 34-year-old was heading in a direction radically at odds with the French state and society.
There are other, darker stories told here about the two brothers ....
.
A neighbour in Gennevilliers told The Globe and Mail that she and her husband became so concerned about the behaviour of the Kouachi brothers whom they could hear loudly reciting the Koran inside their apartment at all hours that her husband and a friend decided to break in to the Kouachi residence when the brothers left to buy groceries. She said they found a cache of arms inside.
..... they were caught when the brothers returned home, and that they shoved her husband around and threatened him into silence. That was two months ago.
.....the brothers shared a fourth-floor apartment in Gennevilliers, a distinctly middle-class suburb on the northern fringe of Paris that counts a large enough Arab and Muslim population among its 40,000 inhabitants to justify a mosque big enough for 2,500 people to pray at once.
Neighbours say Said and 32-year-old Chérif shared their apartment with a third man, named Mohammed, who was believed to be their brother-in-law, as well as a woman who always wore a head-to-toe
jilbab, and tightly wrapped headscarf whenever she went outdoors. The woman rarely spoke to anyone but the men who lived with her.
Neighbours say police raided the brothers apartment on Wednesday afternoon, several hours after the attack at Charlie Hebdo. A woman, whom French media reported was the wife of Said Kouachi, was taken into custody. ....
Neighbours said the woman appeared to be heavily pregnant at the time of her arrest. Eight others were taken into custody Thursday in connection with the Charlie Hebdo attack. An 18-year-old, whose name had been linked to the attacks in the media, turned himself into police and reportedly told them he could prove he had been in class at the time of the attack.
Im scared they will come back and kill me for talking to you, me and my husband, said a middle-aged woman who answered the door next to the Kouachis apartment at 17 rue Basly, a building midway between a very French bakery and a Middle Eastern kebab stand..........
Through the walls I could hear them praying all the time: In the name of God the most gracious, the most merciful. God is great. My husband and a plumber forced the door open because we knew they were hiding weapons inside.
They attacked my husband and pushed him against the fridge and said, Are you going to betray us to the police?
The answer was no, which partly speaks to the fear the Kouachis obviously instilled in their neighbours, as well as the chasm in understanding between French police and the Muslims who live in the
banlieues of Paris.
That the Kouachis had been able to build up a store of weapons in their apartment half an hours drive from the centre of Paris is startling, given that Chérif Kouachi is believed to have been on a security watch list.
.......police who searched Chérifs home found videos of al-Qaeda speeches and evidence on his computer that he frequented
jihadi websites. Witnesses to the Charlie Hebdo attack say one of the gunmen claimed they were affiliated with al-Qaeda in Yemen.
there were others in the neighbourhood who clearly understood what might have motivated two residents of middle-class Gennevilliers to attack a symbol of the very different culture that surrounds them in France.
Youre asking the wrong questions, said a young African man who approached a journalist on the street outside the kebab stand. You should ask yourself why someone would be willing to do this, why they would be willing to risk 20 years in jail
You should ask about the gulf in French society.
........ had far from a privileged upbringing their Algerian-born parents died while both were young. French media reported Chérif grew up in an orphanage and, before his 2005 arrest, made a living delivering pizzas while he dreamed of being a rap star.
(there were explosions at two French mosques on Thursday, and Mr. Ali showed The Globe and Mail a tweet calling for French to arm themselves and attack mosques on Friday). But the mosque administration opted for unarmed lookouts on the street outside, rather than asking for police protection. Its better for the community, he said.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...cache-of-arms-neighbour-says/article22372220/
