Walid Phares: Charlie Hebdo Attack 'One of Many Acts of War'

The deadly terror attack at France’s Charlie Hebdo magazine is an act of war, according to Middle East expert Walid Phares, who appeared Thursday on Newsmax TV’s “America’s Forum.”

“This is one of many acts of war,” Phares said. “Unfortunately, in the western world we only read them as such because of the size, how much blood and how sensational they are. Since the shoe bomber after 9/11, this is the same confrontation with the same movement, but for France, killing and massacring in a newsroom is big and for the whole world. It is an act in the jihadi war against the west and liberal democracies indeed.”

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Based on the way the jihadists who ambushed Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that had recently lampooned the Prophet Muhammad, “were moving like a unit on the ground, similar to the way ISIS moves,” the world should be prepared for similar attacks, according to Phares.

Debating about whether to refer to the violent terrorists as “Muslim terrorists” or “mass murderers,” as former Democrat Party Chairman Howard Dean has suggested, is moot.
 
“This is a movement that calls itself jihadists, the world calls it jihadists and even their enemies call them jihadists,” Phares said. “There is no need to open the debate about how Muslim they are or how not Muslim they are not.”

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