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This Happened

This Happened—January 7: The Charlie Hebdo Attack

Two gunmen opened fire at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris on this day in 2015, targeting the magazine's staff for satirizing Islam.

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What happened in the Charlie Hebdo attacks?

Two Islamist gunmen forced their way into the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly newspaper and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring 11. The two Kouachi brothers who carried out the attack would eventually be killed in a police shootout outside of the capital two days later.

Why was Charlie Hebdo attacked?

The magazine had attracted considerable worldwide attention for its controversial cartoons of Muhammad. Hatred for the paper’s cartoons, which made jokes about Islamic leaders including the Prophet Muhammad, is considered to be the principal motive for the massacre. In Islam, it is forbidden to depict Muhammad.

What was the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks?

Two days after the attack, as the police closed in on the Charlie Hebdo suspects, their accomplice, Amedy Coulibaly murdered four Jewish hostages and held fifteen other hostages during a siege of a kosher supermarket in Paris.

On Jan. 11 about two million people marched in Paris in a rally of national unity. The staff of Charlie Hebdo continued with the publication. The following issue had almost eight million copies in six languages, compared to its typical print run of 60,000 in French.

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Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Putin's Hidden Message In Dam Explosion: If Cornered, I Will Stop At Nothing

The Nova Kakhovka dam explosion was undoubtedly carried out by Putin, putting both Ukrainian and Russian lives at risk. The explosion makes clear that there no limits to how far Putin will go. That has been his message since Day One of the war.

Residents of occupied Ukrainian towns flee flooding from the Nova Kakhova Dam explosion

The Kherson region, where Ukraine retook several key towns and cities last November, is flooding as water levels on both banks of the river rose by 10 meters.

Twitter via Volodymyr Zelensky
Anna Akage

-OpEd-

Southern Ukraine is still reeling from the explosion at the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River. The surrounding Kherson region, where Ukraine retook several key towns and cities last November, is flooding as water levels on both banks of the river rose by 10 meters, forcing thousands of Ukrainians to evacuate.

The catastrophe may lead to the shutting down of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the nuclear reactors of which are cooled by water from the Dnipro.

With enormous consequences on a human, environmental and strategic levels, Kyiv and Moscow are blaming each other for the explosion. But it is simply unfathomable that Ukraine could be responsible for the attack — both, because it wouldn't make sense for Ukraine to attack its own people — and because the disaster is a major impediment from Kyiv's much-anticipated military counteroffensive.

Yes, the bombing of the dam was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to slow down his coming military losses. But there is another, deeper explanation for this attack at this moment in time: it's a clear message to the world that there are no limits to Putin’s aggression. Especially when his back is against the wall.

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