Paris Shooting update. Interesting video of president Obama hinting retribution will this mean more boots on the ground in the Middle East. The series of apparent Islamic State attacks in Paris can be compared to the 2001 destruction of the WTC towers in the US, says Jack Rice, a former CIA officer. The French capital is an iconic European city, and terrorists target icons. France has suffered one of the worst tragedies in its modern history with more than 150 people reported killed in seven separate gun and bomb attacks throughout the capital. The terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks. “Part of the strength that a terrorist group has is to take down an icon,” Rice told RT. “If we go back to 9/11 in the United States, they took down the World Trade Center and parts of New York. And we've seen efforts around the world to do similar things. “That's what terrorism is about. You are not going to be able to destroy the Western Hemisphere. You are not going to be able to take down parts of Western Europe. What you can do is establish that what you are doing is dramatic and that people have to notice you,” he added. France should not respond in a draconian manner to the terrorist threat as the US did after 9/11, the former US intelligence officer said. “There needs to be a calculated reasonable response. What there can't be is a draconian effort to reach out to the world and shake it to the core, because what you potentially do is create more danger, more justification in those who support ISIS. We don't want that,” Rice said. “What we want is to go after the culprits who actually did this and make our people safe rather than to make them appear safe. That happened after 9/11 in the Unite States, and, frankly, it was a disaster in many ways. I think the French have learned from that,” he added. The Paris attacks are reminiscent to the terrorist gun spree in Mumbai in 2008, when separate groups of gunmen went on a shooting spree at different locations across the city. This tactic is a brutally efficient form of terrorism, Rice said. “What you have is a city where people don't know where to go, where is that safe place to be. Where is it that I can go, where my loved ones can go. And what you have is almost a paralysis,” he said. “You bring everybody from the intelligence community, from the army, from the police, and try to deal with the situation and lock the country down. And people are trying to get out of the way and don't know where to go.” IS, if it's proven to be behind the attacks, is clearly trying to enlarge its footprint, demonstrating that it can stage terrorist acts globally, Rice said. “They have been showing the strength that they possess, with the recent potential downing of an aircraft in Egypt. Looking at their potential to reach out into Europe, into North Africa, into the Horn of Africa, beyond the Middle East really shows their capability,” he said. “What ISIS is trying to establish is that they can operate anywhere and that everybody is potentially vulnerable. Their ability to reach out and do this all the way down to the common man and woman on the street is something that creates the havoc,” Rice added. Paris (UK: /ˈpærɪs/ parr-iss; US: Listeni/ˈpɛərɪs/ pair-iss; French: [paʁi] ( listen)) is the capital and most-populous city of France. Situated on the Seine River, in the north of the country, it is in the centre of the Île-de-France region, also known as the région parisienne, "Paris Region". The City of Paris has an area of 105.4 square kilometres (40.7 square miles) and had a population of 2,241,346 within its city limits in 2014.[2] The Paris Region covers 12,012 square kilometres (4,638 square miles), and has its own regional council and president. It had a population of 12,005,077 as of January 2014, or 18.2 percent of the population of France.[6] Paris was founded in the 3rd century BC by a Celtic people called the Parisii, who gave the city its name. By the 12th century, Paris was the largest city in the western world, a prosperous trading centre, and the home of the University of Paris, one of the first in Europe. In the 18th century, it was the centre stage for the French Revolution, and became an important centre of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, a position it still retains today. The Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion (US $687 billion) in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France, and ranking it as one of the wealthiest five regions in Europe; it is the banking and financial centre of France, and contains the headquarters of 29 of the 31 companies in France ranked in the 2015 Fortune Global 500. Paris is the home of the most visited art museum in the world,

• published: 14 Nov 2015
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