France: attacks on Muslims and a claim of responsibility from al-Qaeda

"France banned rallies in support of the Palestinians last summer when Israel was carrying out daily airstrikes in Gaza that resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths. The message to Muslims is clear: Your traditions, history and suffering do not matter. Your story will not be heard.”

Firebombs and pigs heads thrown into mosques as anti-Muslim attacks increase after Paris shooting

the Independent,

14 January, 2015

Twenty-six mosques around France have been subject to attackby firebombs, gunfire, pig heads, and grenades as Muslims are targeted with violence in the wake of the Paris attacks.

France’s National Observatory Against Islamophobia reports that since last Wednesday a total of 60 Islamophobic incidents have been recorded, with countless minor encounters believed to have gone unreported.

Amongst the incidents, a mosque in Le Mans was hit with four grenades, and gunfire directed through one of its windows.

While Islamophobic incidents are nothing new, there appears to have been a marked increase in attacks in the wake of the shootings at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

Muslim-owned businesses including restaurants have also been targeted with bomb attacks.

Other incidents include racist graffiti, theats, and intimindation.

Senior French politicians have warned against linking the gunmen with peaceful Muslims, of which France has the biggest population in Europe.

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said last week that the word “Islamist” should not be used to described the murderers, but rather “terrorist”.

“The terrorists' religion is not Islam, which they are betraying. It's barbarity,” he said.

Armed guards have been placed outside some mosques across the country, including the Grande Mosquée de Paris, which was built in 1926 as a token of gratitude to Muslim soldiers in France's army during the First World War.

Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan yesterday warned that Muslims would suffer at the hands of Islamophobia in the wake of the attacks.

“French citizens carry out such a massacre, and Muslims pay the price. That's very meaningful,” he said.

Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical newspaper in whose offices a gunman killed 12 people last week, is seeing its first edition since the massacre.

As of Wednesday lunchtime most newsstands have sold out of the new edition. Five million copies are expected to ultimately be printed of the magazine, up for the usual print run of 40,000

Yemeni Al-Qaeda Gloats 

Over Charlie Hebdo Tragedy, 

Vows More Terror to Come

A high-ranking Al-Qaeda commander in Yemen has released a video where he takes responsibility for last week's Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, warning the West that his organization was ready to unleash more "tragedies and terror" in the future.

Sputnik News,

14 January, 2015

MOSCOW, January 14 (Sputnik) — The Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda which claimed responsibility for last week's Charlie Hebdo terror attacks has warned that it would unleash more "tragedies and terror" in the future if Western countries did not stop their "insults" and the "spilling [of] our blood," an internet video released by the group has stated.

In a YouTube video released on Wednesday, Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, a high-ranking commander of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), officially took responsibility for the Paris attack, warning the West to "stop your insults on our Prophet and sanctities," to "stop spilling our blood," to "leave our lands," and to "quit plundering our resources."

"Otherwise, by Allah, do not expect of us except tragedies and terror," the terrorist leader threatened. "You look for peace and stability but you will not find it because of the deeds of those carrying out martyrdom operations and heroes of lone jihad," he added.

Explaining why France was chosen for last week's horrific attacks, Al-Ansi stated that the country purportedly belongs to the "party of Satan," and it has "shared all of America's crimes. It is France that has committed crimes in Mali and the Islamic Maghreb. It is France that supports the annihilation of Muslims in Central Africa in the name of race cleansing," Al-Ansi declared.

Mocking Sunday's anti-terror march in Paris, attended by over 40 world leaders and dozens of top officials from other governments, al-Ansi stated that these were "the same who fought us in Afghanistan, [the] Caucasus, Gaza, the Levant, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen."

"Look at how they gathered, rallied and supported each other; strengthening their weakness and dressing their wounds," the terror leader stated mockingly. But "these wounds have not healed, and they won't, be it Paris, New York, or Washington or in London or Spain," he said, as a clip played showing the Twin Towers being hit during the 9/11, 2001 terror attacks in New York City.

The AQAP commander called upon Muslim youth in the West to "rise up", saying that the Paris shooting was a "new turning point in the history of confrontation."

At least one of the suspects involved in the Charlie Hebdo attack is said to have traveled to Yemen in 2011, Yemeni intelligence authorities have said, ostensibly to be trained by the AQAP terror group, Reuters had earlier reported. The Paris attack, which the propaganda video calls the "Blessed Battle of Paris," is said to have been planned years in advance, and financed by the terror group.

On January 7, Charlie Hebdo's Paris office was attacked by gunmen, who murdered 12 people and injured another 11. Two of the terrorists responsible for the attack were later shot by police after an extensive manhunt, and a third suspect turned himself in.

Paris Attacks: Rage of the Dispossessed

‬Chris Hedges says the mass self-exaltation of European leaders is dangerous because with it comes a blindness towards our own culpability 

Glenn Greenwald on How to Be a Terror "Expert": Ignore Facts, Blame Muslims, Trumpet U.S. Propaganda

Who are the so-called terrorism experts? In the wake of the Paris attacks, the corporate media has once again flooded its news programs with pundits claiming authority on terrorism, foreign policy and world events. We discuss the growing and questionable field of "terrorism experts" with three guests: Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-founder of The Intercept; Lisa Stampnitzky, social studies lecturer at Harvard University and author of "Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented 'Terrorism'"; and Luc Mathieu, foreign affairs reporter for the French newspaper Libération

‘France has serious issues with racism rather than with Islam’

Anti-Islamization & pro-tolerance demonstrators take to German streets

Jeremy Scahill on Paris Attacks, the al-Qaeda Link & the Secret U.S. War in Yemen

Democracy Now!

In a follow-up to coverage on Democracy Now! over the past few days, the news network CNN has been given some direct, on-air criticism of its use of so-called terrorism experts for discussion of violent attacks like the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Speaking to CNN, The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill was asked about his comments during a Democracy Now! interview on Monday in which he criticized corporate media coverage of the attack’s aftermath. Scahill called out CNN and other networks for using pundits he said have no right to call themselves "terrorism experts."

"CNN and MSNBC and Fox are engaging in the terrorism expert-industrial complex, where you have people on as paid analysts that are largely frauds who have made a lot of money off of portraying themselves as terror experts and have no actual on-the-ground experience," Scahill said. "Some of your paid analysts, that you have on this network or other networks, basically are just making money off of the claim that they’re experts on terrorism and really don’t have the scholarly background or on-the-ground experience to justify being on your network or any other network."

Watch the full Democracy Now! interview with Scahill that was quoted on CNN: