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Two women embrace as they hold a board that reads 'Meme Pas Peur' (Not Afraid) in front of the Petit Cambodge restaurant, one of the Paris attack sites.(Photo: David Ramos, Getty Images)
The attacks in Paris that killed at least 127 people Friday night suggest<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the Islamic State has broadened its reach beyond the Middle East and is capable of executing<span style="color: Red;">*</span>devastating attacks in the West.
“It suggests a major shift in the organization’s global strategy,” said William McCants, an analyst at Brookings Institution and author of The ISIS Apocalypse.
French President Francois Hollande blamed the attacks on the terror group and vowed to step up military action against the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL. France has participated in the U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
In a statement, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the massacre, calling Paris “the capital of prostitution and obscenity” and pledged further attacks. “This attack is the first of the storm,” the statement said. The statement could not be independently verified.
Previous attacks in the West, such as the January attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which killed 20 people including three attackers, appeared to have been inspired by the Islamic State.
What distinguishes the Paris attacks is their<span style="color: Red;">*</span>coordination, which<span style="color: Red;">*</span>requires<span style="color: Red;">*</span>planning and preparation and<span style="color: Red;">*</span>suggests<span style="color: Red;">*</span>they were directed from the group’s central leadership.
“It’s not the kind of operation you would expect from a group of guys who had never traveled abroad or received training,” McCants said.
Hollande said the slaughter is<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“an act of war that was prepared, organized, planned from abroad with internal help.”
The terror organization’s statement said the attacks were carried out by eight terrorists armed with assault rifles and wearing suicide vests.
The attack comes in the wake of at least two other recent bombings in which<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the Islamic State had<span style="color: Red;">*</span>reached beyond its traditional stronghold in Syria.
The group claimed responsibility for the downing of the Russian airliner over Sinai last month that killed all 224 passengers and crew<span style="color: Red;">*</span>aboard.
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Russian airliner crashes over Sinai
The terror group may<span style="color: Red;">*</span>also be<span style="color: Red;">*</span>behind bombings in Beirut on Thursday that killed 43 civilians in a neighborhood controlled by Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a Shiite group backed by Iran. The Islamic State is a Sunni organization that considers Shiites an enemy.
“All of this coming in rapid succession suggests they are willing to take the fight to the enemy” more globally, McCants said.
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Islamic State claims twin suicide blasts in Beirut, 43 dead
“You would guess they had least one more in the bag,” he said. “My worry is the one more would be in the United States.”
The Islamic State’s rise as a deadly terror group has been rapid. Its de facto capital is in Raqqa, Syria, but it began to emerge as a global threat last year when it attacked into Iraq, seizing large swaths of territory, including Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.
Islamic State fighters in Raqqa, Syria, in 2014.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Uncredited, AP)
The group has said it seeks to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>create a caliphate, a state ruled with Islamic law, across Iraq and Syria.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The Islamic State has regularly slaughtered and abused people in lands it controls. When it drove the Yazidis, a religious minority, from their home in northern Iraq last year, they pressed many of the women and girls into sexual slavery.
What set Islamic State<span style="color: Red;">*</span>apart from al-Qaeda and other terror groups was its ability to hold terrain.<span style="color: Red;">*</span> Planning and directing large attacks far from its base in Syria would represent a new capability.
The apparent shift comes as al-Qaeda has changed its own tactics. In 2013 al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri warned against indiscriminate bombings and attacks that might killed innocent Muslims or non-combatants.
The Islamic State’s new aspirations could be part of its competition with al-Qaeda or been part of a long-term plan, McCant said.
“We don’t know yet,” he said. “Maybe we won’t know for several years.”
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