From today's AP report 12 dead in terror attack on Paris paper; manhunt for gunmen, by J. Keaten and L. Hinnant, via Yahoo! News:
"Masked gunmen stormed the offices of a satirical newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, methodically killing 12 people Wednesday, including the editor, before escaping in a car. It was France's deadliest terrorist attack in half a century.
Shouting "Allahu akbar!" as they fired, the men also spoke flawless, unaccented French in the military-style noon-time attack on the weekly paper Charlie Hebdo, located near Paris' Bastille monument. The publication's depictions of Islam have drawn condemnation and threats before — it was firebombed in 2011 — although it also satirized other religions and political figures.
...The attackers forced one of the cartoonists... — at the office with her young daughter — to open the door.
The staff was in an editorial meeting and the gunmen headed straight for the paper's editor, Stephane Charbonnier — widely known by his pen name Charb — killing him and his police bodyguard... Minutes later, two men strolled out to a black car waiting below, calmly firing on a police officer, with one gunman shooting him in the head as he writhed on the ground.
Ten journalists were killed and two police... one of them assigned as Charb's bodyguard and another who had arrived on the scene on a mountain bike.
"Hey! We avenged the Prophet Muhammed! We killed Charlie Hebdo," one of the men shouted, according to a video filmed from a nearby building and broadcast on French television. Other video images showed two gunmen in black at a crossroads who appeared to fire down one of the streets. A cry of "Allahu akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great"— could be heard among the gunshots.
The gunmen abandoned their car at the northern Porte de Patin and escaped, Paris police said.
Corinne Rey, the cartoonist who said she was forced to let the gunmen in, said the men spoke fluent French and claimed to be from al-Qaida...
World leaders... condemned the attack, but supporters of the militant Islamic State group celebrated the slayings as well-deserved revenge against France.
Both al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have repeatedly threatened to attack France. Just minutes before the attack, Charlie Hebdo had tweeted a satirical cartoon of the Islamic State's leader giving New Year's wishes. Another cartoon, released in this week's issue and entitled "Still No Attacks in France," had a caricature of a jihadi fighter saying "Just wait — we have until the end of January to present our New Year's wishes."
"This is the darkest day of the history of the French press," said Christophe DeLoire of Reporters Without Borders...
On social media, supporters of militant Islamic groups praised the move..."
(The article is live-updated, so the text is likely to be different if you follow the above link.)
I am so sorry for the valiant French journalists and policemen who died for the sake of freedom of speech, the cornerstone of civilization.
In a cruelly ironic coincidence, less than a day before the shooting Turkish Islamist president Erdogan lectured EU that it was time to crack down on "Islamophobia". Commenters to this article in a united chorus wrote that "Islamophobia" is a misnomer. In the words of one of them, Michael: "A phobia is an irrational fear. Wasn't there a suicide bombing in Turkey within hours of this speech? Wasn't there a shooting in France hours ago due to satirical cartoon featuring a Muslim? Maybe if we could go a day or two without having Muslims blow up something they dislike, there would be less "Islamophobia"."
To be fair, the suicide bombing mentioned in the comment was done by a supporter not of radical Islam but of another plague of mankind, Marxism. The essence, however, remains true: there is Islamophobia because a tiny but reliably present proportion of Muslims terrorize and murder non-Muslims, as well as fellow Muslims, in the name of Islam.
I am advocating for acceptance of thousands of Muslim refugees fleeing barbaric repression - and even genocide - perpetrated by the Muslim government of their country (Syria), but at the same time I can only hope that the good deed of accepting these asylum seekers will go unpunished.
I didn't want to begin the new year with such a post, but - that's the reality.
Update: According to new reports, the Istanbul suicide bombing initially believed to have been Marxist was Islamist after all!
"Masked gunmen stormed the offices of a satirical newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, methodically killing 12 people Wednesday, including the editor, before escaping in a car. It was France's deadliest terrorist attack in half a century.
Shouting "Allahu akbar!" as they fired, the men also spoke flawless, unaccented French in the military-style noon-time attack on the weekly paper Charlie Hebdo, located near Paris' Bastille monument. The publication's depictions of Islam have drawn condemnation and threats before — it was firebombed in 2011 — although it also satirized other religions and political figures.
...The attackers forced one of the cartoonists... — at the office with her young daughter — to open the door.
The staff was in an editorial meeting and the gunmen headed straight for the paper's editor, Stephane Charbonnier — widely known by his pen name Charb — killing him and his police bodyguard... Minutes later, two men strolled out to a black car waiting below, calmly firing on a police officer, with one gunman shooting him in the head as he writhed on the ground.
Ten journalists were killed and two police... one of them assigned as Charb's bodyguard and another who had arrived on the scene on a mountain bike.
"Hey! We avenged the Prophet Muhammed! We killed Charlie Hebdo," one of the men shouted, according to a video filmed from a nearby building and broadcast on French television. Other video images showed two gunmen in black at a crossroads who appeared to fire down one of the streets. A cry of "Allahu akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great"— could be heard among the gunshots.
The gunmen abandoned their car at the northern Porte de Patin and escaped, Paris police said.
Corinne Rey, the cartoonist who said she was forced to let the gunmen in, said the men spoke fluent French and claimed to be from al-Qaida...
World leaders... condemned the attack, but supporters of the militant Islamic State group celebrated the slayings as well-deserved revenge against France.
Both al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have repeatedly threatened to attack France. Just minutes before the attack, Charlie Hebdo had tweeted a satirical cartoon of the Islamic State's leader giving New Year's wishes. Another cartoon, released in this week's issue and entitled "Still No Attacks in France," had a caricature of a jihadi fighter saying "Just wait — we have until the end of January to present our New Year's wishes."
"This is the darkest day of the history of the French press," said Christophe DeLoire of Reporters Without Borders...
On social media, supporters of militant Islamic groups praised the move..."
(The article is live-updated, so the text is likely to be different if you follow the above link.)
I am so sorry for the valiant French journalists and policemen who died for the sake of freedom of speech, the cornerstone of civilization.
In a cruelly ironic coincidence, less than a day before the shooting Turkish Islamist president Erdogan lectured EU that it was time to crack down on "Islamophobia". Commenters to this article in a united chorus wrote that "Islamophobia" is a misnomer. In the words of one of them, Michael: "A phobia is an irrational fear. Wasn't there a suicide bombing in Turkey within hours of this speech? Wasn't there a shooting in France hours ago due to satirical cartoon featuring a Muslim? Maybe if we could go a day or two without having Muslims blow up something they dislike, there would be less "Islamophobia"."
To be fair, the suicide bombing mentioned in the comment was done by a supporter not of radical Islam but of another plague of mankind, Marxism. The essence, however, remains true: there is Islamophobia because a tiny but reliably present proportion of Muslims terrorize and murder non-Muslims, as well as fellow Muslims, in the name of Islam.
I am advocating for acceptance of thousands of Muslim refugees fleeing barbaric repression - and even genocide - perpetrated by the Muslim government of their country (Syria), but at the same time I can only hope that the good deed of accepting these asylum seekers will go unpunished.
I didn't want to begin the new year with such a post, but - that's the reality.
Update: According to new reports, the Istanbul suicide bombing initially believed to have been Marxist was Islamist after all!
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