Maajid Nawaz’s Insights on the the Terror Strikes in Paris

By Maajid Nawaz (original source The Daily Beast)

“It was a horrible and horrifying scene on Friday the 13th in Paris, where seven apparently coordinated terrorist attacks killed 127 people or more. The attackers used grenades and Kalashnikovs; four suicide bombings have been reported.

Center stage for this well-planned assault appears to have been the Bataclan concert theater, where more than 100 people have died. One witness there, according to BFM television, claimed that he heard rounds of automatic rifle fire and someone shouting “Allahu akbar!” And French radio reported a shooter shouting, “This is for Syria.”

French President François Hollande has understandably declared a state of emergency, closing roads and firming up borders while deploying the French military internally. The sheer levels of coordination, sophistication, and determination—as well from sporadic eye witness accounts—indicates that Paris has succumbed to yet another jihadist attack. First accounts of these tragedies can be notoriously imprecise, but that is the working assumption I will use to make my comments below.”

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