Two injured in a terror attack in France with the motive being anger over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

 

One of the victims of the attack being rescued. The Guardian/AFP.

Two people have been injured in a mass stabbing near the old offices of Charlie Hebdo, with the suspect confirming he was a radicalized Muslim who did it because he was offended. The Guardian. Charlie Hebdo was the magazine that published several cartoons that displayed Muhammad, which is forbidden by many interpretations of Islam. The offices of the magazine were attacked back in 2015, leaving 12 people dead. This attack occurred in the area of those officers but Charlie Hebdo has long since moved. The victims were two people sitting on a bench smoking before they were slashed by the attacker, who has been identified as an 18 year old Pakistani man who arrived in the country three years ago as an unaccompanied minor. The suspect has been arrested and charged with attempted murder as part of a terror group.

My Comment:

As always, I will post the cartoon whenever this subject may come up. The entire idea of these terror attacks is to intimidate people into not doing something and whenever that happens it's our duty to do it. I know most news media today are too cowardly to republish the cartoons but I don't care. I'm not Muslim, so I have no problem posting a picture of Muhammad. 

I actually just wrote about the Charlie Hebdo attacks earlier this month. The story is back in the news as some of the people that helped the attackers are currently on trial for their roles in the attack. Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons and it seems that action is what inspired the attacker to commit his crime. 

That story and this one do not appear to be getting much coverage in international media. I missed the story entirely yesterday and it's not like I wasn't looking for things to write about. I ended up posting about President Trump's pitch to black voters, an important story of course, but while I was looking for a topic to post about I didn't find this one at all. 

Part of it is because it's hard not to consider this attack a failure. Only two people were injured and nobody was killed. I'm not sure why, we have seen mass stabbings with double digit kill counts before, but thankfully this wasn't one of them. And I have to point out the stupidity of attacking an area that no longer has much to do with Charlie Hebdo. Their offices have moved for obvious reasons, so essentially this attacker was targeting a random area. 

It's unclear if this attacker was helped by any larger terror group. A few other people were questioned and the suspect was charged with attempted murder as part of a terror group, but I doubt he actually had much in the way of help. The method and the foolish nature of the attack makes me think that this was a lone wolf attack and if ISIS or al-Qaeda had any role at all it was providing materials and training on the internet. These terror groups no longer seem capable of helping lone terrorists, let alone pulling off their own attacks, in Europe. 

As for Charlie Hebdo, I am hoping that this current attack does not change anything. I don't know why it would, the previous attack killed 12 people, including much of the staff of the magazine, and they still continued to publish. I don't agree with Charlie Hebdo's beliefs but I do believe in free speech and they have every right to publish whatever they want and it's not on them if a terrorist attacks them for it.