Charlie Hebdo attackers were irreligious criminals, not devout holy warriors.
Evidence
Digging into their pasts after the attacks, European investigators found that the criminals were actually “lazy” non-observant Muslims. They did not associate with the Muslim community around them, and many of them did not even have jobs. In interviews, their own family members characterized them as irreligious deadbeats who spent their time smoking marijuana in bars and “never went to the mosque.” Their relatives further divulged that these extremists had never even read the Quran before. Suffice it to say, these are hardly the images of devout “holy warriors” drunk on over-immersion into their religion that the Western media likes to portray. These were criminal assholes that were very far from their faith and looking to kill people for no reason. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 475
Categorization
- XREF: Concrete data on who actually radicalizes — supports the beyond-national anti-Muslim narrative used in Sweida-Metwally and Kumar.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 475