The
scariest thing about the Nice truck attack is the nonchalance of the subsequent
media coverage. By July 2016, terrorist attacks in France had become no big
deal, thanks to the horrific events of 2015, their Annus horribilis. This is
where it started. With the help of riveting survivors’ testimony, Dan Reed
documents the campaign of terror step-by-step in Three Days of Terror: The Charlie Hebdo, which premieres
tomorrow night on HBO.
Evidently,
Mohammad was no match for an unruly satirical magazine with a penchant for
alienating its own leftwing supporters. To assuage the Prophet’s hurt feelings
over a few caricatures, the world’s jihadists put Charlie Hebdo in their
crosshairs. Having survived a 2011 firebombing, the staff relocated to more
secure, unmarked offices. Unfortunately, they were not secret and secure
enough.
Arguably,
the Smithsonian Channel’s Paris Terror Attacks does as good a job or better explaining the chain of fateful
events. The new stuff Reed brings to the table are eye-witness accounts from
the magazine’s neighbors and several of the high-ranking police officers who
managed the response. 3 Days puts
many of the familiar images of the attack in context, explaining who shot them
and from what vantage point. Easily the most compelling interview sequence
features television producer Martin Boudot, whose offices were across the hall
from the magazine. Instead of warning his neighbors, Boudot called the police
and barricaded his door. It is an understandable defensive response, but he now
deeply regrets not proactively warning the Charlie Hebdo staff.
While
the Kouachi brothers were terrorizing Charlie Hebdo and making their last stand
in Dammartin, their former cellmate Amedy Coulibaly commenced the Hypercacher
kosher market hostage crisis. Reed largely skips over the Dijon and Nantes
vehicular attacks, which were considered wildcat actions, but clearly
prefigured the Nice terror truck incident. Thanks to eye witness accounts, 3 Days gives viewers a sense of how ruthlessly
cold-blooded Coulibaly was as he went about his lethal business.
The
January 2015 terrorist crisis had profoundly tragic consequences, especially for
Charlie Hebdo and the Parisian Jewish community, but it was only the tip of the
iceberg. It is important that we study the events in question to better prepare
for future attacks. Yet, some of the significance of the attacks has largely
gone unnoted. The Kouachis and Coulibaly were not just native French born
terrorists. The brothers were linked to Al Qaeda’s Yemen division, while
Coulibaly professed allegiance to ISIS, yet they were reportedly in
communication with each other during their respective attacks and claimed to
have coordinated their efforts. The prospect of Al Qaeda and ISIS working
together is almost too frightening for counter-terror officials to contemplate, yet
perhaps it already happened at a grassroots-cell-to-cell level.
