The Paris attack is an attempt to euthanize European tolerance

On Wednesday, January 7, 2015, at 11:30 AM, two armed and masked attackers entered the premises of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris and, with lightning speed, cold-bloodedly liquidated almost the entire editorial staff and police security of this magazine, killing 12 people and wounding eleven.

First, the editors, journalists, and cartoonists Jean Cabut, Stéphane Charbonnier, Bernard Verlhac - Tignous, and Georges David Wolinski were killed, and their only "crime" was a complete misunderstanding of Islam as a religion.

Insulting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in any way, including satirically, is primarily an expression of elementary ignorance of Islam, a reflection of lack of culture and basic human feeling for religious respect and tolerance. It is above all an immoral and unacceptable way of treating others who are different, according to all customs, moral values, religious codes, and canons, and it is rejected by any person with a modicum of upbringing and taste.

Caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in any context, especially satirical ones, represent the humiliation of Islam as a religion and Muslims as a religious community.

However, on the other hand, that is not a sufficient reason for two masked and armed men to break into the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo, which published the caricatures, and, with premeditation, completely calmly and cold-bloodedly, shoot and kill 12 people and wound eleven with automatic weapons. This is an act of unprecedented vandalism, which has never had, nor will it ever have, any connection with Islam as a religion or with Muslims as a religious community. It is above all an immoral and unacceptable way of treating others who are different, according to all customs and high moral values of Islam, and such vandalistic behavior is rejected by every person with a modicum of upbringing and taste, especially a true believer - a Muslim.

This vandalistic terrorist act that occurred in Paris was, above all, a well-planned and precisely executed military operation in which two masked shooters armed with automatic assault rifles calmly, without panic, and to the end, cold-bloodedly liquidated the editorial staff of a magazine and their security.

The motive for this action is not at all because the magazine Charlie Hebdo published offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), because that could have been done for that reason long ago, but rather an attempt to compensate for the very negative reaction to the Taliban attack on a military school in Peshawar in northern Pakistan, where 130 students of this school, children aged 8, 10, 12, and 15, were also cold-bloodedly killed.

This event was condemned worldwide, and support for Islamic radicalism was despised and condemned from the pulpits of mosques around the world. The entire Islamic world, and especially Muslim religious authorities, sharply condemned the Taliban and their attack on the military school in Pakistan. Social networks in Muslim communities raised their voices against the Taliban and Islamic radicalism in general, and a negative image of Islamic fundamentalism as an ideology spread across the internet, especially among Muslims, which worried global jihadists.

It was necessary to divert attention from this case and give new motivation to Islamic radicalism by sentencing to death those who insulted the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which was supposed to win back the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world. That is why the attack in Paris was carried out.

The global support for the brutally executed journalists, which was launched on social networks immediately after the attack, boils down to an unconditional defense of freedom of public speech and expression, which in the case of Charlie Hebdo is the right to critically comment on any religion. This perfectly suits terrorists and Islamic radicals who are rejoicing among themselves over the brutal execution of journalists.

In terms of propaganda, with the natural reaction of Western media and intellectuals in defense of the right to freedom of public speech and expression, Islamic fundamentalism, after the tragedy in Peshawar, once again has a basis for spreading radical ideas and recruiting new global jihadists. France, a country where a similar terrorist attack occurred in 2011 in Toulouse, in which one attacker killed 9 people and wounded several, had no major terrorist attacks until the one carried out on Wednesday, January 7, 2015. As a country with a very large Muslim community of 5-6 million people, France is very suitable for carrying out this type of attack, which will certainly trigger a wave of intolerance towards Muslims not only in France but throughout Europe.

After expressing open intolerance towards Muslims in general, it will not be difficult to recruit young men and women in Muslim communities to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The fact that Islamic radicalism is on the rise in France is also indicated by the data from the French Ministry of the Interior, which shows that the number of citizens training or fighting in Syria and Iraq has increased from about 550 at the beginning of 2014 to 946 currently in the field. Some of them have certainly returned to France and, as in other European countries, they are recruiting and training smaller groups of radicals to carry out these and similar terrorist actions. These groups form so-called "sleepers," i.e., people who are activated and used as needed to carry out terrorist actions when the time comes.

We could see the modus operandi of these small sabotage teams precisely in Paris. The attackers have certainly undergone very intensive military training, as can be concluded from the footage taken in the immediate vicinity of Charlie Hebdo's headquarters. According to eyewitnesses, they called out their future victims by name in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, which means they were tracking their movements and knew exactly that they were in the offices.

I was personally particularly struck by the shattered windshield of the police car, which shows that the policeman at the wheel was targeted to be killed and that the bullet holes indicate that the shooter skillfully grouped the shots in a small area with an automatic assault rifle, and this on a moving vehicle.

Another thing that can be seen from the footage released so far is that both attackers move and shoot according to military rules of movement on the battlefield. According to this pattern, one shooter covers his colleague with fire, which can be seen in the footage, and this again indicates that the attackers use concentrated fire to cover the area, which is a matter of routine and repetition of actions and procedures in the use of firearms, which requires time.

The footage clearly shows that the attackers are wearing black clothing, black balaclavas, assault vests with combat ammunition, and bulletproof vests, and it is assumed that they are also wearing suicide belts with explosives. Their calmness and cold-bloodedness are evident in the fact that they did not lose their composure for a moment, and that they aimed at all their victims with single shots, not bursts, and that they aimed to kill them.

In the case of the very brutal liquidation of the French police officer who tried to stop them, which was recorded on video, it can be seen that both attackers, with successive single shots, simultaneously targeted the officer, which is another indicator that both attackers are certainly experienced soldiers who behave routinely in shooting, aiming together in the same direction. After hitting him, both approached him, and only one calmly fired a fatal shot into the wounded officer's head, while the other scanned the surroundings.

The latest information indicates that the Paris police have identified the attackers and that their location and arrest are underway, and that one of them has already surrendered to the police. Official sources state that there were three attackers, which again suggests that this was a well-organized terrorist attack, as the task of the third attacker, who did not participate directly in the attack, was certainly to film the entry and exit of the attackers from the Charlie Hebdo premises for social media, as a crescendo was expected during the exit and confrontation with the police.

The Paris attack is an open attempt by Islamic radicals to euthanize the European dream of tolerance and peaceful coexistence of various nations and religions in Europe. It is another tragic event in the global war against terror, which is very specific because it aims to achieve the greatest possible propaganda effect, and it suits Islamic radicals that all Western media have stood up in defense of the right to freedom of public speech, because they will interpret this as global support for insulting Muhammad (peace be upon him).

The fight against such a conceived sowing of horror on the streets of major European cities is primarily conducted in a propaganda sense and must essentially contain the rejection of generalization and equating entire Muslim communities in Europe with the reckless and cold-blooded killing of innocent people. If this does not happen, terror will prevail, and various self-proclaimed caliphate leaders with Rolexes will continue to foam at the mouth from mosque pulpits against everything that is different and alien, and call on Muslim youth to blow themselves up in the name of Allah Almighty or to cold-bloodedly kill innocent people.

All Muslim communities in Europe and Islamic countries around the world, all their religious authorities and political leaders must publicly distance themselves from such outbursts of senseless violence. Muslims around the world must be proud of people like Ahmed Merabet, a 42-year-old French Muslim police officer who was shot in the head at close range while trying to stop the Paris horror, despite being seriously wounded, instead of celebrating and justifying the cold-blooded murder of 12 Charlie Hebdo journalists.