Was There an Intelligence Failure Leading Up to Charlie Hebdo Terror Attack?

January 9, 2014

As Trauma Grips France, Government Faces Questions Over Intelligence Lapses

PARIS — With twin hostage dramas at different ends of Paris by armed jihadists who have killed at least 13 people and traumatized France, the government faced gaping questions on Friday over the failure to thwart such brazen attacks, especially on a well-known target like the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

The French intelligence services knew that striking the newspaper and its editor, for their vulgar treatment of the Prophet Muhammad, had been a stated goal of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, through its propaganda journal, Inspire. And they had the Kouachi brothers, Saïd, 34, and Chérif, 32, on their radar aspreviously involved in jihad-related activities, for which Chérif went to jail in 2008.

The French apparently also knew, or presumably should have known, either on their own or through close intelligence cooperation with the United States, that Saïd had traveled in 2011 to Yemen, where news reports on Friday said he had met with the American-born Anwar al-Awlaki, a member and propagandist for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who was later killed by an American drone strike.

But Yemen has been an American, not a French priority, intelligence analysts said on Friday. And with French security concentrating on the 1,000 to 2,000 French citizens who have traveled to fight in Iraq and Syria against the Syrian regime or with the Islamic State, it was likely that the Kouachi brothers and their friends — including Amedy Coulibaly, the man said to be involved in the second hostage taking — were put lower on the priority list, the analysts said.

But such reasoning did not answer the basic questions about why the French had not monitored the Kouachi brothers more aggressively, what the brothers were doing between 2011 and now, and why Charlie Hebdo was not better protected. And it raised the question of whether there had been a spectacular failure in American-French intelligence cooperation.

“The problem we face is that even though there are not that many radicalized Muslims in France, there are enough of them to make it difficult to physically follow everyone with a suspicious background,” said Camille Grand, a former French official and director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris-based group. “It’s one thing to listen to the phone calls or watch their travel, but it’s another to put someone under permanent physical surveillance, or even follow all their phone conversations full time for so many people.”

There simply are not enough police and security officials to keep full monitoring on everyone who goes through prison, said Jean-Charles Brisard from the French Center for Analysis of Terrorism, who had spoken to French security officials. The authorities had Chérif Kouachi under surveillance “for a period of time, but then they judged that there was no threat, or the threat was lower, and they had other priorities,” he said.

Given the 1,000 to 2,000 French citizens who have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight, of whom perhaps 200 of them have returned, “it’s a problem of resources,” Mr. Brisard said. “To follow a person 24 hours a day you need at least 20 people. And you cannot impose surveillance on everyone, even legally it’s impossible.”

President François Hollande went on television again on Friday to try to reassure the nation, visiting the Interior Ministry to supervise the police action, which has been rapid and efficient to identify and corner the suspects since the attack on Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday.

“France is going through a trying time,” he said, adding that “we have known for several months that there were attempts” at additional terrorist attacks, at least five of which have been thwarted in the last 18 months, the Interior Ministry said.

But why the attack on Charlie Hebdo was not thwarted will preoccupy French security and the French public after those responsible are killed or apprehended. The attacks also are likely to aggravate the political problems of Mr. Hollande, already considered weak and indecisive.

Officials will want to know everything about the brothers — were they assigned to hit the newspaper, and if so, by whom? Or were they inspired by events in the Middle East to act on their own? If they were tasked by Al Qaeda, was it an effort by the organization to bring attention back to itself, given the focus on the Islamic State and its declaration of a caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria? Are the two groups working together?

Serious internal questions are also likely, as they were after Mohammed Merah, who had been on the radar of the police and intelligence services, killed seven people in southwestern France in 2012, saying that he was acting on behalf of Al Qaeda. It later emerged that Mr. Merah had traveled to Afghanistan, and that the Americans had alerted the French, who had not reacted with sufficient attention in what was considered an operational failure.

The same issue could arise with Saïd Kouachi and his trip to Yemen, said François Heisbourg, a defense analyst, “but right now we don’t know.” There is bound to be an investigation of international intelligence cooperation, what worked and what did not, he said. “There are lots of questions to answer, but it’s too early to presume a basic failure. We know something went terribly wrong, like an airliner crash, but we need to find out why.”

But as with a crash, he said, “you want to know why, to take decisions to ensure it doesn’t happen again, but people continue to fly and the system improves.”

The standard by which to judge counterterrorism, Mr. Heisbourg said, is similar.

Jean-Louis Bruguière, a former antiterrorism judge who knew Chérif Kouachi when he was arrested in 2005 and a former presidential adviser on terrorism, said that the authorities could not monitor every person of interest. “You can’t keep a policeman tracking every single one of them,” he said, noting that he had interviewed hundreds of aspirant jihadists.

Some kind of strategic overhaul of counterterrorism efforts in France was now likely, he said, but it should not be rushed. “It will take time, we need to get it right,” he said.