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Saïd and Chérif Kouachi
Saïd Kouachi (7 September 1980 – 9 January 2015) and Chérif Kouachi (29 November 1982 – 9 January 2015) were both identified by French police as the main suspects. They are believed to be the masked gunmen who committed the Charlie Hebdo attack. The two Franco-Algerian Muslims, both from Gennevilliers, were aged 34 and 32 respectively. Their parents were Algerian immigrants to France. The brothers were orphaned at a young age, and Chérif was raised in foster care in Rennes before joining his brother in Paris.

Chérif Kouachi, who also went by the name Abu Issen, was part of the "Buttes-Chaumont network" that helped send would-be jihadists to fight for al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. He was arrested in January 2005, at age 22, when he and another man were about to leave for Bashar al-Assad's Syria. Following Chérif's imprisonment between January 2005 and October 2006, Le Monde reported that he came into contact with Djamel Beghal. Beghal was sentenced to 10 years in prison in France in 2001 for his part in a plot to bomb the United States embassy in Paris.

He became a student of Farid Benyettou, a radical Muslim preacher at the Addawa Mosque in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. Kouachi wanted to attack Jewish targets in France but Benyettou told him that France, unlike Iraq, was not "a land of jihad".

In 2008, Chérif Kouachi was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to three years in prison, with 18 months suspended, for having assisted in sending fighters to militant Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group in Iraq, and for being part of a group that solicited young French Muslims to fight with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Chérif Kouachi said he was inspired to help Iraq's insurgency by outrage at the torture of inmates of the U.S. prison at Abu Ghraib.

In 2010, the Kouachi brothers were named in connection with a plot to break out another Islamist, Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, from jail. However, they were not prosecuted due to a lack of evidence. Belkacem was one of those responsible for the 1995 Paris Métro and RER bombings that left eight people dead.

In 2011, Saïd Kouachi visited Yemen for a number of months and trained with Al Qaeda militants in the Arabian Peninsula.

Amedy Coulibaly
Amedy Coulibaly (1982 – 9 January 2015) was identified as the gunman responsible for the Montrouge shooting and the Porte de Vincennes hostage crisis. He was born in Juvisy-sur-Orge, a suburb of Paris. Starting at the age of 17, he had been convicted several times for robbery and at least once for drug trafficking. A report by a psychiatric expert prepared for a Parisian court found Coulibaly had an "immature and psychopathic personality" and "poor powers of introspection".

Coulibaly met Chérif Kouachi in prison while serving his sentence for an armed robbery that occurred in 2005. He is believed to have converted to radical Islam at the same time as Chérif. Sometime after completing his 2005 sentence, he married Hayat Boumeddiene in a religious ceremony, as opposed to a civil ceremony, which is the only method of marriage legally accepted by France. On July 15, 2009, while involved in an effort promoting youth employment, Coulibaly, along with about 500 others, met with then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Ten months after his meeting with Sarkozy, police searched his apartment and found 240 rounds of 7.62mm rifle ammunition. Coulibaly alleged he was planning to sell the ammunition on the street. An early source stated that Coulibaly "was friends of both of" the Kouachi brothers. Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers were known members of the "Buttes Chaumont Terror Group". The name comes from the nearby Parc des Buttes Chaumont, where they often met and did physical training with other French-Algerian extremists. Coulibaly is believed to have been radicalised by an Islamic preacher in Paris, and had expressed a desire to fight in either Iraq or Syria.

In 2010, he was sentenced to five years in prison for assisting a plot to break out Smain Ait Ali Belkacem from prison, which the Kouachi brothers were also involved in. However, Coulibaly was released early.

Other suspects
The police also identified an 18-year-old unemployed French Muslim man of North-African descent and unknown nationality as a third suspect in the shooting, accused of driving the getaway car. He is believed to have been living recently in Charleville-Mézières, about 200 km northeast of Paris near France's border with Belgium. On 8 January, it was reported he had turned himself in at a Charleville-Mézières police station. The man said he was in class at the time of the shooting. His involvement in the attack is questionable as all of his classmates testified that he was present at school in Charleville-Mézières during the attack. Police say that he is currently not being charged.