2015 Charlie Hebdo Attacks Fast Facts

Here is a look at the January 2015 terror attacks in Paris. From January 7 to January 9, a total of 17 people were killed in attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a kosher grocery store and the Paris suburb of Montrouge. Three suspects in the attacks were killed by police in separate standoffs. On December 16, 2020, a French court found guilty 14 accomplices of the French Islamist militants behind the attacks.

The Charlie Hebdo magazine began publishing in 1970 with the goal of satirizing religion, politics, and other topics. Most employees came from the publication Hara-Kiri, which was banned after it mocked the death of former President Charles de Gaulle.

The Charlie in the title references Charlie Brown from the Peanuts cartoon. Hebdo is short for hebdomadaire, meaning weekly, in French.

The magazine ceased publication in the 1980s due to lack of funds. It resumed publishing in 1992.

In 2006, Charlie Hebdo reprinted controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. French President Jacques Chirac criticized the decision and called it "overt provocation."

In 2011, the magazine's offices were destroyed by a gasoline bomb after it published a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed.

Cherif Kouachi:- Born in France, of Algerian descent. - During his standoff with police, Cherif Kouachi told CNN affiliate BFMTV that he'd trained in Yemen with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). - He also told BFMTV that during that time he met with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Muslim who was the face of AQAP until he was killed in 2011 in a US drone strike.