If their agenda is to put a wedge between Muslims and the rest, the Jihadists are doing a pretty fine job.

The attack in Paris that killed 12 journalists and police at the office of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo occurred only a day after thousands of ordinary Germans marched in support of Muslims in Berlin and Cologne. The Germans came out in thousands in response to the earlier anti-Muslim rally in Dresden.

Despite the economic hardships seen since 2009, Europe has largely remained a welcoming place for Muslims.

Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, however, have a different agenda. They want to define the relationship between Islam and the West. The Paris attack appears to be a retaliation against the caricatures of revered figures of Islam published earlier by Charlie Hebdo. The editor,Stéphane Charbonnier, also among the dead, had received death threats in the past.

 

Also read: Charlie Hebdo: attack followed years of confrontation