PARIS TERROR – What We Know (Live Video and Updates); Update: American Student Killed in Paris Attacks
ISIS claims Paris is the “capital of adultery and vice”
As France and the world begins to get a clearer picture of yesterday’s coordinated set of terrorist attacks in Paris, ISIS has claimed responsibility, and French president Francois Hollande has iterated his statement that ISIS is indeed responsible and has made clear that he wants to lead a swift and “merciless” response.
USA Today reports on President Hollande’s statement:
Speaking after the security meeting, Hollande said Friday’s attacks were “committed by a terrorist army, the Islamic State group, a jihadist army, against France, against the values that we defend everywhere in the world, against what we are: A free country that means something to the whole planet.”
CNN reports on the ISIS statement issued today:
ISIS claimed responsibility for gunfire and blasts that targeted six sites Friday night in Paris, killing 128 people in one of Europe’s deadliest massacres in recent years.
In an online statement distributed by supporters Saturday, the terror group said eight militants wearing explosive belts and armed with machine guns attacked precisely selected areas in the French capital.
In addition to the people killed, 180 others were injured, according to the Paris Police Prefecture. More than half of them are in critical condition.
Among those wounded are an as yet unconfirmed number of Americans. Also from CNN:
Americans are among the injured in the Paris attacks, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said Saturday.
“The United States Embassy in Paris is working round the clock to assist American citizens affected by this tragedy,” Toner said in a statement. “The U.S. government is working closely with French authorities to identify American victims. We are aware there are Americans among the injured, and are offering them the full range of consular assistance.”
An American in Paris was interviewed by Megyn Kelly about his experience during the attacks. Watch:
According to the Guardian, one of the terrorists was a French Muslim extremist who was known to French police, and the others held Syrian and Egyptian passports.
The French special forces, who are members of France’s anti-terrorism unit, responded quickly upon reports from those inside the building that the terrorists were killing hostages “one by one” and spent two minutes gaining control of the Bataclan music hall (largely because the terrorists blew themselves—and more hostages—up as the unit approached).
The siege at Paris’ Bataclan concert hall was ended by an assault by French security forces.. One police official described “carnage” inside the building, saying the attackers tossed explosives at the hostages, then blew themselves up with suicide belts as police closed in, The Associated Press reported.
Also according to the Guardian, the claim of responsibility from ISIS appears to be legimate, but what is not yet known is whether these attacks were directed by ISIS or carried about by those who identify with and support them and acted of their own accord.
The Guardian’s Shiv Malik has had a detailed look at the statement purportedly released by Islamic State:
The logo and design of the statements conform with Isis’s past formal statements from their central media office. The central office tends only to deal with releases about large attacks such as Tunisia early this year and this Shia mosque in May and other important military and administrative information.
Isis has also released an audio recording about the Paris attacks. In terms of substance, the six-minute clip is simply a reading of the written statement. The clip has been produced in the same format as previous recordings – they use the same battle song or nasheed at the start for example. It appears that Isis has even employed the same guy to do the reading as in the past.
Charlie Winter, a security analyst who has looked, listened, and watched thousands of pieces of Islamic State propaganda has little doubt that the statement is genuine.
He says that since late September Isis has migrated from Twitter to the encrypted app Telegram to distribute links to its releases. He saw this statement emanate earlier today from Isis accounts he had previously verified.
He says that the banner – “Islamic State France” – is also not unusual. When they don’t have an official Wilayat or governorate in the area concerned, Winter says the default is just to name the country concerned in the way the have and describe the perpetrators as “soldiers of the caliphate”. It does not mean that this statement is itself issued by a Isis branch in France.
Winter’s question is whether the attacks have been inspired or directed. The statements claiming responsibility in both French and Arabic contain no new information about the attacks and appear to have been “put together hastily,” Winter says, which he adds, is “not unusual either”.
The claims of responsibility over the downing of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt a few weeks ago also gave away no new operational details. “The question we have to ask is whether it was directed from higher up in the ranks of [Isis] or whether it was eight supporters/members who were seeking to carry out an attack in its name as an expression of its support,” Winter says.
President Hollande declared the terror attacks an “act of barbarism” and vowed a “merciless” response:
ABC is reporting that ISIS claims it targeted Paris as a “capital of adultery and vice”:
The Islamic State group on Saturday claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks in Paris that killed 127 people and said France would remain at the “top of the list” of its targets.
An online statement said eight militants armed with explosive belts and automatic weapons attacked carefully chosen targets in the “capital of adultery and vice,” including a soccer stadium where France was playing Germany, and the Bataclan concert hall, where an American rock band was playing, and “hundreds of apostates were attending an adulterous party.”
The statement said France and its supporters “will remain at the top of the list of targets of the Islamic State.”
“The stench of death will not leave their noses as long as they remain at the forefront of the Crusaders’ campaign, dare to curse our prophet, boast of a war on Islam in France, and strike Muslims in the lands of the caliphate with warplanes that were of no use to them in the streets and rotten alleys of Paris,” it said.
If the terrorists are hoping to affect change in either morality or French foreign policy by instilling fear in the people that results in a backlash against government policy, it seems that their evil rampage is having the opposite effect:
https://twitter.com/talkingbaws/status/665325479918858240/video/1
Sky News’ live feed is here:
Here’s an additional live feed from France 24:
We’ve curated two Twitter livestreams:
Tweets from https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/lists/paris-terror-attacks
The Queen – "Prince Philip and I have been deeply shocked and saddened by the terrible loss of life in #Paris" (1/2)
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) November 14, 2015
The Queen – "We send our most sincere condolences to you, the families of those who have died and the French people" (2/2)
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) November 14, 2015
UPDATE: An American student is reported as among those killed by the ISIS terrorists in Paris.
A college student from California is the first American fatality identified in the Paris terror attacks.
Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, a junior design major at California State University-Long Beach spending a semester studying at Strate College of Design, was killed at one of the restaurants struck by terrorists Friday night.
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Comments
Anyone that can’t see our bipartisan institutional & political ruling classes have opened us up to similar carnage is delusional & in denial.
10,000 virtually unvetted Syrian refugees in New Orleans, awaiting dispersal to 180 US cities, unavailable for comment.
There are not “10,000 virtually unvetted Syrian refugees in New Orleans, awaiting dispersal to 180 US cities.”
There are two families who have settled in New Orleans from Syria.
Leave Teh Crazy on the crazyblogs, don’t infect this island of sanity with such shite.
We officially have about 1800 Syrian refugees in the US. Not two families. The plan is for 10,000 more. NONE of them should be here. There is vast territories and peaceful areas in the ME that could and should take in people raised in a Muslim culture.
Tell me, how many such attacks as occurred in France are you willing to see here? Because sure as God made little green apples we’re going to get more. I mean we have only isolated ‘work place violence’ now and the occasional bungled Islamist attacks. But when we have ten thousand. Some of them will be pros and since our own government gives out guns to criminals all they need to do is habla some of the Spanish to pass as the kind of criminal Holder and Obama armed.
Who’s to say they still aren’t. They haven’t exactly come clean about it.
Clafoutis claimed there are
There are not “10,000 virtually unvetted Syrian refugees in New Orleans, awaiting dispersal to 180 US cities.” That is crazyblog talk.
There are like two families who have recently settled in New Orleans from Syria.
All the Trump morons are wetting themselves over this meme: http://bit.ly/1O9bWbg Because they’re morons. LI should strive to be a moron-free zone.
Coming soon to a theater near you!
Let’s do a lil’ “get real” session, shall we?
1. Mark Levin held forth on the atrocity in Paris. He’s right partly, and he’s also wrong partly. You listen and think.
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/11/mark-levin-nov-13-podcast
2. The High Priest of the Little Yellow God, who was soiling his thongs the other day about a no-fly zone over a safe area in Syria (which would only work to help keep Syrians in their own territory) over the prospect of “WWIII”, now is flacking and hacking about the idea of “bombing the shit out of them”. Because T-rump, who has the foreign policy acumen of a 14 year-old narcissist.
3. T-rump…or any other POTUS…will not “keep your family safe”. That’s as delusional as Gorebal Climate Thingie. A wall will not keep you or I or our loved ones safe. Look at a map of the US. See those other THREE sides?
4. This Paris attack took 8 actors (that we know about). Let’s say there were another 40 in support. Besides very, very good intelligence, there is no way on earth to stop a small, determined cadre of people…all of whom could be born and raised here…from this kind of atrocity.
5. We all often employ the bromide about “Security vs. liberty”, and we damn well should. But here, given the reality of this kind of threat, you could burn down the open, pluralistic society we have, and there would still be attacks like this one.
6. While there is MUCH more we can do…should have been doing…in the area of national security (which certainly includes border control), this is a war and it will involve attacks here at home. Even if we, as a nation, decided to become a full-tilt police state, they would still happen. They are too cheap to execute, and too effective not to. And they are totally consistent with the aims and beliefs of the jihadii pirates that live all over the world, including right here, and regardless of their ancestry.
We all have to deal with that reality.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4612635373001/mark-steyn-on-the-wests-struggle-with-radical-islam/?playlist_id=930909787001#sp=show-clips
Mark Steyn on the very points I’ve raised.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/11/fbi-has-nearly-1000-active-isis-probes-inside-u-s/
And that’s likely a SMALL fraction of the number it should be.
PLUS, you can have a person radicalize right here, with absolutely no means of “vetting” them.
Yes we can grow our own. Now tell me why we should import more or make it easy for them to get here.
How ’bout YOU quoting where I remotely suggested that.
Today’s theme song,
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x38qpu_al-wilson-the-snake_news
with the gentle reminder that the US Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Nor is Islam a religion. It’s a totalitarian ideology of conquest, and has been since its origins.
And the guy in the White House who we call president says we should not jump to conclusions as to was behind this and that ISIS has been “contained”. Wow! So out of touch. Even his party is out of touch.
I guess the only thing to ask now is what will president Trump do?
I guess the media interpretation would be that “While our government goes ‘all out’ to bring attention to the seriousness of global warming at Paris, some junior varsity demonstrators attempted to up-stage our efforts.”
Free speech does not exist in a vacuum. It is the plinth of freedom’s fortress. It is the ineliminable imperative if there is to be the robust exchange of knowledge and ideas, the rule of reason, freedom of conscience, equality before the law, property rights, and equality of opportunity. That is why it must be extinguished if there is to be what Qaradawi calls a “place of religion” – meaning his religion. For all its arrogance and triumphalist claims, radical Islam must suppress speech because it cannot compete in a free market of conscience.
-snip-
Free expression is the gateway to assimilation. Consequently, radical Islam cannot tolerate it.
-snip-
Once one grasps the voluntary apartheid strategy, it becomes obvious why radical Islam’s inroads in France, and elsewhere in Europe, seamlessly translate into demands for the enforcement of sharia’s curbs on speech and artistic expression. What is not so obvious is just how profound a challenge to the West this constitutes.
http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2015/11/14/how-france-became-an-inviting-target-of-the-jihad/?singlepage=true
So… What’s your big idea? Suspend the First Amendment just for Muslims? Expel anyone who…though a U.S. citizen…converts? What…???
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH…police state?
You’ve nailed the exact point at which Islam and today’s coddled campus kiddies meet: Offend me in any way, and you will suffer (die, lose your job / livelihood, whatever). The demand that they not be offended is what currently marries the unlikely pairing of the progressive left and jihadists. How that plays out should either side win . . . .
I see them as one side. I…and others like me…are on the other.
I don’t have to try to shut them up, because I think my ideas are much stronger. They, on the other hand, DO default to, “Shut up, or we’re gonna MAKE you!”.
I think that’s the point Steyn was making, too. We HAVE to engage. We HAVE to fight. We simply must stand up for Western ideas and ideals. This isn’t JUST about fighting killers. It’s about fighting anyone who on any level acquiesces to the killers or fascists out of fear or ambivalence…or fundamental agreement about Western civilization like that of Barrucula.
I ain’t skeered of a clash of ideas, and I’ll physically fight anyone who tries to shut me up. Nola problama!
It looks like most of Ragspierre’s post (the sensible part) is quotations from Andrew McCarthy — after which he expresses his real concern, which is that it would be just terrible if we didn’t give the Islamic ideology of conquest the same First Amendment protections as a proper religion — the same protections extended to religions that don’t think it’s necessary or proper to kill people who “insult” their founders.
Ragspierre’s worries about a “police state” don’t appear to include any worries about the police state that Islam would impose upon him. (This isn’t the first time that Rags has shown a misplaced concern to protect First Amendment rights for an ideology that aims to extinguish the First Amendment, and a misunderstanding of what Islam fundamentally is.)
I’m no more in favor of denying Communists or Fascists (or any of the Collectivist cousins) the right to express their bankrupt ideas. (So long as that’s all they do.)
I think my ideas are stronger. Again, I don’t give a flying FLUCK if one or the other pretends some religious patina. The First Amendment is not specific to “religion”. Let us meet in the arena of ideas, and I figure the ideals of liberty and the Enlightenment will carry the day.
BUT I certainly DO insist that arena remains open, and, of course, I will physically fight anyone who tries to shut it down. Happily…
That would include people nominally “on my side” of this.
In other words, you believe that because Muslims (when it’s convenient) call their ideology of domination a “religion,” we must therefore honor Islamic “demands for the enforcement of sharia’s curbs on speech and artistic expression,” and allow Muslims to keep calling for death to infidels — because, after all, those are central doctrines of their “religion.”
Andrew McCarthy obviously knows Islam much better than you do, and he well understands the cynicism of Muslim demands for religious freedom while Islam itself demands the extinction of every other religion, and while Muslims overwhelming insist that “freedom of speech” does not include the freedom to criticize Islam or “blaspheme” its “prophet.”
As long as you refuse to acknowledge that Islam is fundamentally not a spiritual creed but a totalitarian ideology of global conquest with its own political and legal code, you might as well send up your “I submit” flag right now and be prepared for the sharia police state — which I suppose would make your conscious feel better than doing what’s necessary to contain the Islamic demon.
That was one of your rare really stupid comments. You should reload after reading what I’ve actually said.
I take the exact same position WRT Collectivism (which makes no pretense at being “spiritual”). I am not for outlawing their speech, though they…like you observed WRT some Islamists…want to outlaw mine. I’m not for acceding their ideas are stronger. Quite the contrary.
I won’t tolerate either them silencing me, or my impulse to silence them. I am for free speech.
Rags, this isn’t the first time you’ve fretted about how terrible it would be to impinge upon the First Amendment by recognizing that Islam (as its adherents often say) is not just a religion like every other religion, but a totalitarian ideology that aims to control you and everyone else.
Your sarcastic remark about a “police state” is in the same vein is comments you’ve made before revealing that you consider it unthinkable even to contemplate treating Islam as anything more than just another religion that individuals may believe in if they choose.
See above. Any totalitarian system is the same to me. I’m not afraid of any of them.
Why are you?
I don’t think that’s what Rags is saying, though. He’s perfectly capable of defending himself, so I want to address your points because you’re spot-on that Islam is not solely a religion. It’s really a political totalitarian ideology that uses religion to “manage” its adherents.
The fact that Paris was targeted because it’s supposedly a hotbed of adultery and vice should tell us all we need to know about the goals of ISIS. They are expanding their caliphate and trying to crush everything that stands in its way (like actual sovereign-ish countries).
ISIS is about the caliphate, about cleansing the world through murderous evil of anything that stands between it and global domination. They’re just as nuts now as they were in the middle ages, and it will take a near take-over by Muslims before the west wakes up (just as it did back then, by the way).
Until then, we’ll deal with Obama saying on the one hand this is a strike against all humanity and on the other, well, gee, who knows what this is really about? Remember that Jewish deli where “random folks” were targeted? This is probably more of the same. Gee, golly. Oh, and while I’m at it, let’s let a few thousand more Syrian “refugees” into America.
McCarthy made some thoughtful comments — based on close experience with Muslims — about the complicated relationship between First Amendment religious freedom and a “religion” that aims to kill the First Amendment (and much else).
Rags could have made some thoughtful comments in response. Instead, he responded in a trivially sarcastic way: “Oh noes! A police state!” And he’s done the same thing before.
That is now a serious way of looking at a critical civilizational issue.
I love reading your comments on LI, I really do. I also enjoy those that Rags posts. The divide between you is a matter of degrees, not principle. Rags says that peaceful [fill in the blanks] should be garnered every First Amendment right, and I think this is something with which many of us would agree.
Rags seems to be arguing that on the battleground of ideas, conservative principles win, but he’s not an idiot. He knows that many people, including ISIS, are not fighting on the battleground of ideas. Can our ideas win? Of course, but the key to any winning argument is a pliable jury, and frankly, we know that ISIS has no intention of living peacefully amongst us.
Does ISIS give a flying flip in their own special level of hell about what we think? Nope. You don’t debate people like this; you annihilate them before they annihilate you (we know this is their goal because they’ve said it is). Rags knows this, you know this, I know this. We’re on the same side. 🙂
“So… What’s your big idea? Suspend the First Amendment just for Muslims? Expel anyone who…though a U.S. citizen…converts? What…???”
Excellent ideas, both of them. Anyone who is a devout Muslim cannot take the oath of citizenship without lying. What you fail to understand is that no Muslim can sincerely practice his faith without trying to convert, enslave, or kill everyone who is not a Muslim. Until you grasp that fundamental point, either stay out of the way or declare your membership in the Fifth Column along with Michael Moore, Harry Reid, etc.
None of us care particularly which.
Uh, no. Thanks.
I’ll defend the Constitution, along with McCarthy, Steyn, and every other believer in our ideas.
Again, thanks awfully. Stuff it.
I’ve been out of the loop. Which youtube video are we blaming this time?
At least, yet perhaps just for now, the French understood that they must stand for their nation, such as it is, or for nothing at all. The French evacuating their stadium were singing the La Marseillaise with vigor and as a martial song, as written during a war.
During the 200-hundred celebration of the Storming of the Bastille. the La Marseillaise was sung as though it were a love song, performed by dancing nymphs! Maybe the French will realize either they defend their country or it becomes part of a Caliphate!
We haven’t even experienced the first major ISIS attack on the USA and already some are jumping in with their top concern — that muslims might lose some benefits of the First Amendment.
We are bringing hundreds of thousands of potential terrorists across our borders to settle but the REAL issue is that we might in some way restrict their rights.
And anyone who disagrees is in favor of a “police state”. This from the same guy who thumps his chest and says he’s not afraid of a totalitarian state. Talk about self-contradictory rubbish.
We have heard this before, from those who respond to every terrorist attack with concerns that it might spread “islamophobia”. Bad enough — but to claim that Steyn and McCarthy somehow support such puddinheaded foppery? A powerful emetic indeed.
“OMG, Pearl Harbor has been bombed, let’s make sure no Japanese are inconvenienced.”
How about we at least stop importing muslims en masse? A good first step.
“I don’t have to try to shut them up, because I think my ideas are much stronger. They, on the other hand, DO default to, “Shut up, or we’re gonna MAKE you!”.
I think that’s the point Steyn was making, too. We HAVE to engage. We HAVE to fight. We simply must stand up for Western ideas and ideals. This isn’t JUST about fighting killers. It’s about fighting anyone who on any level acquiesces to the killers or fascists out of fear or ambivalence…or fundamental agreement about Western civilization like that of Barrucula.”
That’s what I said, you lying sack of shit.
You really ARE a skilled propagandist, however.
So you stand up for islam just like you did for Dreamer Amnesty. Not a surprise.
0bama/democrat party are most likely secretly celebrating the attacks in France with huge gay orgies with jihadists, union thugs, socialists, and communists. Since they feverishly protect Islam no matter what happens.