Jihadists and Supporters Take to Social Media to Praise Attack on Charlie Hebdo
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Version 0 of 1. BEIRUT, Lebanon — Within hours of the deadly attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Islamic extremists and their supporters were praising the killings and lauding the attackers on social media under hashtags like #we_avenged_the_prophet and #lone_wolves. The attack on Wednesday and the subsequent manhunt shook France and unleashed an international outpouring of sympathy for the victims. But for jihadists from North Africa to Pakistan, the attack was a justified blow against a state perceived as an enemy of Islam. “Two lions terrified all of Paris and made #paris_burn,” boasted a post on one jihadi Twitter feed, above a photo of the two gunmen close to the time of the attack. Elsewhere on social media, jihadists and their supporters remixed attack videos, adding sound effects and jihadist anthems, and spread photos of the attackers, calling them martyrs and heroes. One account even posted a jihadist poem, in French. The attack came at a time of decentralization and discord among jihadists. Many analysts believe that the central leadership of Al Qaeda has been declining in power and influence for years, challenged both by military action against it and by a growing assertiveness by other groups, such as the Islamic State. Al Qaeda cut ties with the group last year, and the Islamic State declared its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the world’s Muslims. While some jihadists admire the Islamic State’s strength and wealth, others see its declaration of a caliphate premature or invalid under Islamic law. But dissenting voices on the Paris attacks appeared to be rare among jihadists over the past few days, with members of different groups united in their belief that the French newspaper deserved to be punished for making fun of the Prophet Muhammad with often crude cartoons. The day after the attack, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, praised the attack in an audio “news” report released online, saying that “heroic jihadists” had attacked the office of a newspaper that made fun of Muhammad. Islamic State supporters redistributed parts of an audio message from September by the group’s spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, in which he told supporters to kill any “disbelieving American or European, especially the spiteful and filthy French.” Al Qaeda also voiced its support. In an audio message released online Friday, Harith al-Nadhari, an ideologue from the group’s Yemeni affiliate, said the attack sought revenge against “some filthy French people” who had insulted the prophet. “Some sons of France misbehaved towards God’s prophets, so some of the believer soldiers of God rose up against them and taught them good behavior and the limits of freedom of expression,” Mr. Nadhari said. On Saturday, a jihadist linked to the same group, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said the group had directed and supervised the Paris attack, according to the SITE monitoring group, which tracks jihadist websites. That claim matched statements by one of the attackers, Chérif Kouachi, before he was killed and information from American officials who said that his brother, Saïd, had met with a senior Qaeda figure in Yemen. Others complained about the attention given to the attack when compared to the news coverage of places where Muslims are regularly killed. “When the killing of Muslims become something normal while the world makes noise at the killing of non-Muslims, we ask, ‘What has made us undervalue the blood of Muslims?’ ” said Eyad al-Qunaibi, a jihadist theoretician in Jordan, on Twitter. The deep sense of insult over the newspaper’s depictions of the prophet went far beyond the extremists to many devout Muslims who opposed the killing. “This act doesn’t stand for what real Islam is,” said Fadi Yassin, an antigovernment activist in northern Syria reached through Skype. “But it also comes as a result of mistakes committed by the media that have for a longtime offended Muslims by insulting their sacred figures.” Shadi Hamid, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of a book on Islamist movements, said that mainline Islamist groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood parties in Egypt and Jordan, had condemned the violence but criticized the newspaper. But the real resonance of the Paris attack would be with the jihadists who reject politics and compete for recruits, funding and headlines, he said. “What we are seeing here is a terrorist outbidding, where ISIS and Al Qaeda are under pressure to outdo each other,” he said. |