Consider the choice of targets of the terrorists: A magazine that in the terrorists’ minds had insulted the Prophet Mohammed. Before they died on Friday, one of the Kouachi brothers who carried out the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine spoke on the phone to a French journalist, saying, “We are just telling you that we are the defenders of Prophet Mohammed.”
Consider that the other target of the terrorists was a kosher store serving Jews. Virulent anti-Semitism is, of course, a staple of militant Islamist ideology. Militants can point to the Quranic verse, “O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends,” as religious “proof” for this position.
Consider also that the three terrorists believed in their own minds that they were holy warriors who would die “martyred” in their holy war and that they would live on in Paradise.
One of the terrorists, Cherif Kouachi, planned to fight in the Iraq War against the Americans but was detained by French authorities in 2005 before could execute his plan. Kouachi told French investigators that “the wise leaders in Islam told him and his friends that if they die as martyrs in jihad they would go to heaven” and “that martyrs would be greeted by more than 60 virgins in a big palace in heaven.” This refers to the hadith, or saying of the Prophet Mohammed, that martyrs will enjoy the favor of 72 virgins.
Before he was killed, another of the terrorists, Amedy Coulibaly, recorded a “martyrdom” video in which pledged his allegiance to the leader of ISIS. In the video he said, “I am firstly addressing the caliph of the Muslims Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. … I pledged allegiance to the Caliph as soon as the caliphate was declared.”
This statement refers to the belief that a Muslim caliphate, or empire, will stretch across the Muslim world and will be led by a caliph, who is the political and religious successor of the Prophet Mohammed.
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The Paris terrorists shared in this. One of the terrorists, Amedy Coulibaly, recorded a video before he died, saying that the bombing of ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq by Western countries had motivated his attacks: “If you attack the Islamic State, we will attack you. … You and your coalition, you bombarded regularly over there.”
For the Paris terrorists, as it was for bin Laden, the only answer to the purported Western assaults on Islam is revenge. That explains 9/11, and it also explains the terrorist attacks in Paris last week. To claim that these attacks had nothing to do with a number of Islamic beliefs — albeit cherrypicked — is preposterous.
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