In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Beneficent

ISIS Statement

Allah (ta'ala) said, They thought that their fortresses would protect them from Allah but Allah came upon them from where they had not expected, and He cast terror into their hearts so they destroyed their houses by their own hands and the hands of the believers. So take warning, O people of vision [Al-Hashr:2].

In a blessed battle whose causes of success were enabled by Allah, a group of believers from the soldiers of the Caliphate (may Allah strengthen and support it) set out targeting the capital of prostitution and vice, the lead carrier of the cross in Europe — Paris. This group of believers were youth who divorced the worldly life and advanced towards their enemy hoping to be killed for Allah's sake, doing so in support of His religion, His Prophet (blessing and peace be upon him), and His allies. They did so in spite of His enemies. Thus, they were truthful with Allah — we consider them so — and Allah granted victory upon their hands and cast terror into the hearts of the crusaders in their very own homeland.

And so eight brothers equipped with explosive belts and assault rifles attacked precisely chosen targets in the center of the capital of France. These targets included the Stade de France stadium during a soccer match — between the teams of Germany and France, both of which are crusader nations — attended by the imbecile of France (Francois Hollande). The targets included the Bataclan theatre for exhibitions, where hundreds of pagans gathered for a concert of prostitution and vice. There were also simultaneous attacks on other targets in the tenth, eleventh, and eighteenth districts, and elsewhere. Paris was thereby shaken beneath the crusaders' feet, who were constricted by its streets. The result of the attacks was the deaths of no less than two hundred crusaders and the wounding of even more. All praise, grace, and favor belong to Allah.

Allah blessed our brothers and granted them what they desired. They detonated their explosive belts in the masses of the disbelievers after finishing all their ammunition. We ask Allah to accept them amongst the martyrs and to allow us to follow them.

Let France and all nations following its path know that they will continue to be at the top of the target list for the Islamic State and that the scent of death will not leave their nostrils as long as they partake in the crusader campaign, as long as they dare to curse our Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him), and as long as they boast about their war against Islam in France and their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets, which were of no avail to them in the filthy streets and alleys of Paris. Indeed, this is just the beginning. It is also a warning for any who wish to take heed.

Allah is the greatest.

(And to Allah belongs all honor, and to His Messenger, and to the believers, but the hypocrites do not know) [Al-Munafiqun: 8].

France police raid homes, vow it's 'just the beginning

Police raided homes of suspected Islamist militants across France overnight following Friday's Paris attacks, and a source close to the investigation said a Belgian national in Syria was the possible mastermind.Prosecutors said one of the killers had been stopped and fingerprinted in Greece last month, fuelling speculation that Islamic State had taken advantage of the recent influx of refugees fleeing the Middle East to slip militants into Europe.The carnage, which killed 129 people, has led to calls for the European Union to close its borders to asylum seekers.Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks in retaliation for French airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, warned in a video on Monday that any country hitting it would suffer the same fate, promising specifically to target Washington.French warplanes bombed Islamic State training camps and a suspected arms depot in its Syrian stronghold Raqqa late on Sunday -- its biggest such strike since it started assaults as part of a U.S.-led mission launched in 2014.Much of France came to a standstill at midday for a minute's silence to remember the dead. Metro trains in Paris stopped, pedestrians paused and office workers stood at their desks.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters police had arrested 23 people and seized arms, including a rocket launcher and automatic weapons, in 168 raids overnight. Another 104 people were put under house arrest, he said."Let this be clear to everyone, this is just the beginning, these actions are going to continue," Cazeneuve said.The investigation into the coordinated Paris attacks, the worst atrocity in France since World War Two, led swiftly to Belgium after police discovered that two of the cars used by the militants had been rented in the Brussels region.

Dozens of Belgian police and armed commandos surrounded houses on Monday in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, which is home to many Muslim immigrants.Police arrested seven suspects in Brussels over the weekend, five of whom have been released, and are hunting Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old Frenchman based in the Belgian capital, who is one of three brothers believed to have been involved in the plot.

French jets bomb ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria; few may have been killed

Irbil, Iraq (CNN)The French air force carried out bombing missions on ISIS targets in Raqqa, Syria, for a second day in a row. France is retaliating against Islamist extremistterror attacksthatkilled at least 129people in Paris.

ISIS claims Raqqa as the capital of its so-called caliphate.

On Monday, France targeted a command center, a recruitment center, an ammunition storage base and a training camp in the city, the French military said.

Brussels raid: Police hit Molenbeek, area at heart of Belgium's jihadist threat

On Sunday, the air force struck similar strategic targets in multiple sorties, reinserting France, a partner in the U.S.-led coalition striking ISIS from the air, into the battle against ISIS.

Terror in Paris: What we know so far

Many bombs, few killed?

A group of anti-ISIS activists in Raqqa reported 24 bombs dropped and 30 explosions overnight into Monday. Mostly the suburbs were hit, but in the city, the stadium and the museum were also struck, saidRaqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

ISIS uses the museum and the stadium as jails. Its headquarters are also in the stadium, the activists said.

On Sunday, 12 aircraft dropped 20 bombs on ISIS positions in Raqqa, destroying all targets, France's Defense Ministry said.

Leader of al Qaeda belittles leader of ISIS as not worthy

(CNN)In a blistering new message, the leader of al Qaeda denounces the leader of ISIS as the illegitimate leader of a phony caliphate.

Exposing a glaring hostility between the two jihadi groups, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al Qaeda, openly attacks ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for usurping the jihadi movement.

"We do not acknowledge this Caliphate," he says, according to a translation from SITE Intelligence posted Wednesday. "We do not see Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as one worthy of the Caliphate."

He dismisses al-Baghdadi as a pretender who declared himself caliph with the support of only "a few unknown people," and established ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State, "by force and with explosions and car bombs," instead of by "the choice of the people" through "approval and consultation."

He also faults al-Baghdadi for failing to support Muslims who are not in the Islamic State's territory.

"When Gaza was burning beneath Israeli bombs, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did not support it with one word, but his main concern was that all the mujahideen pledge allegiance to him, after he assigned himself to be the Caliph without consulting them."

And he accuses al-Baghdadi of sedition, for encouraging al Qaeda followers to abandon their pledges, and instead promise their loyalty to ISIS.

"It's a major broadside against the Islamic State," says former State Department counterterrorism adviser William McCants, who is now with the Brookings Institution. "Zawahiri is clearly very angry and frustrated that the Islamic State has been attacking him, attacking his soldiers on the ground, attacking him personally."

Georgetown University's Nicholas Palarino says al-Baghdadi is stealing his thunder, and al-Zawahiri feels threatened. "You can compare it to two drug gangs, or two mafia mobs. One is encroaching on the other's territory."

The two groups have competing strategies, he says, and right now ISIS is more popular with extremists. "There is a generational split. Zawahiri and al Qaeda are more plotting, planning and patient, whereas Baghdadi is demonstrating results."

But one U.S. official cautions that it is not necessarily good news for the United States that two of America's enemies are pitted against each other. Instead, their rivalry may spur them on to outdo one other.

"You have a competition going on that I think is dangerous for the United States," says Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "I worry that they're going to up the ante."

Sudanese Factory Destroyed by US Now a Shrine

President Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike on the pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum in 1998; the Sudanese still haven't forgotten.Fourteen years after American cruise missiles destroyed a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, its ruins have been left untouched as a shrine that still rankles Sudanese.The precision strike did its work: The buildings are pulverized, a tangle of broken concrete and iron bars; thousands of brown bottles of veterinary and other medicines lie scattered, the whole scene stained by endless sun and sandstorms.

The Aug. 20, 1998, attack was ordered by President Bill Clinton, simultaneously with missile strikes against training camps run by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, to retaliate for the dual bombings two weeks earlier at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.Myths continue to abound, on both sides, about a military strike that wiped out Sudan's largest pharmaceutical facility, a trophy plant that specialized in anti-malaria medicines, antibiotics, and lifesaving veterinary goods - and where the British ambassador was among the dignitaries at the 1996 opening.

Debate remains unresolved in the United States, whenever it is brought up, about the wisdom of destroying the factory and whether it ever posed a threat, as Washington declared, of chemical weapons falling into terrorist hands.Still bitterness

But in Sudan there is no such debate, just bitterness and anger at what is widely seen as an unjustified strike. Indeed, Sudanese officials at the time told this journalist visiting days after the bombing that he was free to go anywhere, and photograph anything - the first time ever under the authoritarian regime of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.Ikram Ataib sees the ruins of Al Shifa every day

ISIS Claims Responsibility

SINONE, Iraq — The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the catastrophic attacks in the French capital, calling them “the first of the storm” and mocking France as a “capital of prostitution and obscenity,” according to statements released in multiple languages on one of the terror group’s encrypted messaging accounts.

The remarks came in a communiqué published in Arabic, English and French on the Islamic State’s account on Telegram, a messaging platform, and then distributed via its supporters on Twitter, according to a transcript provided by theSITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist propaganda.

An earlier statement was released but was deemed unlikely to be authentic because of anomalies in the language, as well as an error in a date provided, according to experts on jihadist propaganda.The statement was released on the same Telegram channel that was used to claim responsibility for thecrash of a Russian jetover the Sinai Peninsula two weeks ago, killing 224 people. As in that case, it made the announcement in multiple languages and audio recordings. President François Hollande of France said on Saturday that the Islamic State was responsible. Analysts said the nature of the attacks was more in keeping with actions of the Islamic State than with those of Al Qaeda, and the timing and extent of the celebration expressed online by the group’s supporters added weight to the claim. “Eight brothers, wrapped in explosive belts and armed with machine rifles, targeted sites that were accurately chosen in the heart of the capital of France,” the group said in the statement, “including the Stade de France during the match between the Crusader German and French teams, where the fool of France, François Hollande, was present.”

“Let France and those who walk in its path know that they will remain on the top of the list of targets of the Islamic State,” the statement added, referring to the attacks at the Bataclan concert hall and elsewhere in Paris.

The style of the attack was in line with the Islamic State’s tactic of indiscriminate killings and goes against Al Qaeda’s guidelines. In a 2013 directive, the leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, stated that Qaeda operatives should avoid attacks that could inadvertently cause the death of Muslim civilians and noncombatant women or children.

Group Task

1. What should France do?

2. What should the US do?

3. How has this class helped you better understand the Paris Attack?

4. Which of the following are the attackers?

Defenders of their religion

Defenders of the Islamic State

Defenders of Sharia Law

Targeting Dhimmi