“Hooded, black-clad gunmen burst into the office of a provocative French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, killing four cartoonists and eight others before heading off onto the streets of Paris,” CNN reports.
According to ABC News, “The deadly attack today on a satirical French newspaper that claimed the lives of at least 12 people in Paris appeared to be a well-planned and deliberately-executed assault by trained militants, according to counter-terrorism experts.
“They carried out the operation in a very calm, controlled way,” said Richard Clarke, former White House counter-terrorism advisor and current ABC News consultant. “They appear to have fire discipline, not spraying bullets everywhere. They were people who did not look like they were wild, on some kind of spree, but who were accomplishing a military operation.”
Said Reuters, “One of the men was captured on video outside the building waving his arms and shouting ‘Allah!’. After dozens of shots rang out, two assailants were seen calmly leaving the scene. One police officer was seen being shot as he lay wounded.”
The Reuters story continues, noting that the newspaper “Charlie Hebdo (Charlie Weekly) is well known for courting controversy with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders and has published numerous cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad. Jihadists online have repeatedly warned that the magazine would pay for its ridicule.
“The last tweet on its account mocked Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the militant Islamic State, which has taken control of large swathes of Iraq and Syria and called for “lone wolf” attacks on French soil.”
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