It has been a horrible few days in France and a horrific start to the year. In a span of 53 hours, starting with the armed raid on the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo, France saw its worst terrorist violence in half a century after at least 20 people were killed, including the three gunmen whose murderous rampage in this unprecedented attack shocked France and the world. The bloody climax to Friday's unprecedented double hostage-taking brought to an end three days of drama, but left a number of important questions unanswered. Was this attack planned and orchestrated from abroad and if so by whom? Is there any credence to claims made by the gunmen, the Kouachi brothers and the grocery hostage killer Amedy Coulibaly, before they died that they were linked to Al-Qaeda in Yemen and to the so-called Islamic State? And what was the real target here, Charlie Hebdo or the entire French nation? Questions are already being asked of French police and intelligence about how the trio, especially the brothers, well-known for their extremist views and already on US and European no-fly watch lists, were left free to acquire assault rifles and carry out the murderous raids. The brothers had been on a US terror watch list for years, meaning there has obviously been a clear breach in French intelligence, as well as a clear break in US-French security cooperation. When so many people die, obviously mistakes were made. These gunmen, not unknown to the authorities, somehow fell off someone's radar screen. Following these spectacular events, the French government will have to do better than just consistently argue that it cannot monitor every single felon with a police record or wannabe terrorist. Beyond this is the question of where Islam stands vis-a-vis the attacks in France. The answer is clear to at least all peaceful Muslims who make up the vast majority of Muslims: Islam condemns the violence committed in its name - even when the religion has been so smeared by the vitriol and ugliness which spewed from the provocations of Charlie Hebdo. The several million Muslims in France and the hundreds of millions around the world are distancing themselves from those responsible for the attacks, because those who committed these acts, though Muslims, have nothing to do with the Muslim faith. We would hope that French Prime Minister Manuel Vall in his insistence that France was “in a war against terrorism”, not “against a religion”, is speaking the truth. What has happened in France was not completely unexpected. The attacks in France, the hostage siege last month in Sydney and the October killing of a soldier near Canada's parliament are not only evidence of an increased risk of reprisals against US and Western targets for the American-led intervention against IS militants in Syria and Iraq, but they also show that terrorist affiliates of Al-Qaeda, not long ago taken for dead, are seemingly metastasizing and turning into a global network. As France reels from the double hostage dramas that followed the massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine, the country is preparing for a huge march today, Sunday, which will attract hundreds of thousands of people, including many world leaders. Despite their collective relief that the standoffs ended, on the minds of all will be whether this week was only the beginning. There remains a palpable sense of foreboding. As President Hollande declared, France had “faced down” this attack, but the threats, he said, were not finished. Militants could be planning other mass casualty attacks and intelligence services might be stretched to the limit to stop them. What happened in France may not be the final act.
