Unexpected? Unfortunately no ...

Far more than 100 dead, suicide bombers, and people shot in restaurants or on the open street. Paris has experienced an attack in the style of the major terrorist attack of Mumbai 2008. And one has to even wonder if the whole thing in Paris did not turn out relatively "mildly," because the bombs that exploded outside the stadium were likely intended for inside or for crowds leaving the stadium. In that case, the number of victims would have been much higher. None of this is surprising.

Our American partner magazine SOFREP was informed weeks ago by sources from French authorities that the French police had met with the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) to discuss a planned, imminent terrorist attack in Paris.

The question was no longer "if," but only "when."

Industrial targets had already been surveyed by terror suspects, and a bomb that did not detonate had been found in a facility. The explosives used came from a little-known theft from a French military depot months earlier, according to SOFREP Editor Jack Murphy. By that time, German and French police officers and intelligence experts suspected that terrorists were targeting soft targets in Paris and that it was no longer a question of "if," but only "when"... The only question left unanswered by French security forces was whether the targets would be soft (civilian) or hard (military/government/industry) targets that the terrorists intended to attack immediately.

"We are already in war. Whether we like it or not."

While nothing is known yet about the attackers, Viennese political scientist and Kurdistan expert Thomas Schmidinger makes an attempt at an initial assessment on his Facebook page: "What happened yesterday in Beirut and last night in Paris is horrifying, but not unexpected to me, and I fear that it will not remain an isolated incident." Schmidinger, who also works in Jihadism prevention - his book "Jihadism: Ideology, Prevention, and Deradicalization" has just been published - continues: "Those were not just a few crazies, but a concerted attack by the Islamic State (IS) in Europe. This is - as absurd as it may sound - an expression of the weakness of the IS. The IS has been seriously challenged in Syria and Iraq in recent days. (...)" The IS is far from defeated in the region, according to Schmidinger, but weakened: "It was probably from the beginning that, in its decline, the IS would resort to terrorism in Europe. It had enough time to build structures in Europe. Since the West hesitated militarily for a relatively long time, the death toll will now be even higher; Not only in the region, but also in Europe. We are already in war. Whether we want it or not. However, there is no way around the destruction of the IS. Delaying further will only lead to even more victims!"

More on the topic: "Attackers, Kalashnikov, Rampage" - Security expert Ralf Kassner on rampage attacks