Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that he could see the “rationale” behind the attack on the headquarters of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, but not the terrorist attacks that rocked Paris on Friday.
“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that,” Kerry said at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, according to a transcript of his comments. “There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.”
Gunmen attacked Charlie Hebdo’s Paris headquarters in January, killing 12 people. An al-Qaeda branch later claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was retaliation for a cartoon the publication published of the prophet Mohammed.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the coordinated terrorist attacks across Paris on Friday that left at least 129 people dead. The attackers targeted the Stade de France, where the French and German national teams played a friendly match, as well as several restaurants and a concert hall.
“This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate,” Kerry said. “It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration.”
h/t Politico
