Paris massacre establishes ISIS as al-Qaida successor

The long-held belief that Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, was nothing more than a regional Islamic extremist group was shattered Friday night in the massacre in Paris. Coordinated gun-and-suicide bombing attacks across the City of Lights left at least 129 people dead and 352 injured.

But the act of barbarism by three groups of attackers linked to Islamic State also left governments around the world, including the United States, with the realization that a new global terrorist organization has replaced al-Qaida, which long bore that label.

That terror network, created by Osama bin Laden and responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America’s homeland, largely collapsed after the death of bin Laden at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALS and the killing of many members of his inner circle.

But as the wanton murders in Paris of innocent people, including that of an American college student studying fashion design, show, Islamic State is not just content with flexing its muscle in Syria and Iraq. It is determined to spread its brand of religious extremism throughout the Middle East and beyond by declaring war on nonbelievers and randomly killing innocent men, women and children.

‘MERCILESS’ WAR

French President Francois Hollande, whose country has a long history of being targeted by terrorist groups, pledged that France would wage “merciless” war on Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the massacre.

Investigators from France and other nations moved quickly to track down the accomplices of the eight terrorists who died Friday night. Seven of the eight were suicide bombers. French security forces shot one to death.

The killers have been linked to networks in Belgium and Syria, which indicates that such acts of terrorism are not localized, but rather are being conducted on a global scale.

For that reason, the declaration of war on Islamic State by countries in Europe, the Middle East and the United States is justified and appropriate. Indeed, the massacre in Paris demands a reassessment of the strategy adopted by the U.S. and its allies and Russia and Iran in their effort to take back the territory in Syria and Iraq now occupied by adherents of a Caliphate.

With good reason, U.S. President Barack Obama and heads of state in Europe and the Middle East have been reluctant to commit large numbers of troops to fight ISIS. The quagmire that is Iraq and Afghanistan demand caution. The leaders, therefore, have been content to launch aerial strikes on the extremists’ strongholds, but it is now clear that the battle must take place on the ground.

The enemy is largely unseen because many of Islamic State’s recruits come from Western nations that provide them with freedoms, including the freedom to practice their religion, that does not exist in most of the Middle East.

Thousands of individuals who have gone to Syria and Iraq to train and fight with ISIS have returned to their home countries. They are the ones who pose the greatest danger to free societies, as the massacre in Paris shows.

It is instructive that after the attacks in January in Paris on the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical newspaper, and a kosher supermarket, resulting in deaths of many people, the French government adopted a series of measures designed to monitor the activities of extremists living in the city and other population centers.

Yet, Friday’s massacre took everyone by surprise. Indeed, given the coordination of the attacks and the weapons used, including homemade bombs that the suicide bombers detonated and AK 47s, the conclusion that can be drawn is that a great deal of planning went into the attacks. How could the terrorists have avoided detection? It’s a question every intelligence agency should explore.

It is also noteworthy that Friday’s attacks came after Islamic State suffered major setbacks with Kurdish forces retaking the Iraqi city of Sinjar and the killing of Mohammed Emwazi, the British accented militant known as “Jihadi John.” He was featured in grisly IS beheading videos.

On other hand, Islamic militants conducted twin suicide bombings in Beruit that killed 43 people and wounded 200. And 26 people died in Baghdad in a suicide blast and roadside bombing that targeted Shiites. Finally, the crash of a Russian commercial jet is now being blamed on a bomb planted by Islamic militants.

This is a war of good vs. evil – and thus far the evildoers appear to be winning.