On November 13th, gunmen and bombers attacked a number of locations throughout Paris.
They killed over 120 people, and wounded an even larger number.
ISIS, otherwise known as the Islamic State, claimed responsibility for these attacks.
[A group of believers from the Soldiers of the Caliphate, set out targeting the capitol
of prostitution and vice -- the lead carrier of the cross in Europe, Paris.]
In the past, ISIS hasn't really launched any major terrorist attacks abroad.
ISIS's basic goal is holding on to its territory in Iraq and Syria. Why change your strategy
now?
One theory, according to the Brooking Institute's Will McCants, is that they are trying to warn
off their enemies abroad.
Recently ISIS has been losing territory. Bombing from the US-led coalition, which includes
France, has hurt the group.
[They have lost something like 25 percent of their territory.]
So ISIS has a problem: it has strong foreign militaries fighting against it, and it doesn't
have a good way to attack back at them.
So one theory according to McCants, is that this attack is a means of showing these enemies
that ISIS will hurt them if they keep attacking them.
Evidence for this theory includes the fact that ISIS recently a part of Lebanon that's
a Hezbollah stronghold.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese militia that is fighting on the same side as Bashar al-Assad in Syria,
nominally an ISIS enemy
Similarly there is strong suspicion that Syria bombed a Russian airliner in Egypt.
So the idea here is that ISIS wants to show that you will pay a price if you attack ISIS
in Syria and Iraq.
So ISIS's attack in Paris might not have been out of strength. It might have been out of
weakness.