November 16, 2015

Mourners pay their respects at one of the attack sites in Paris, November 15, 2015. Credit: © Benoit Tessier, Reuters/Landov

Last Friday night, November 13, Paris was rocked by a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that left more than 129 civilians and 7 terrorists dead. Hundreds of civilians were wounded, some very seriously. French President François Hollande called the attacks an “act of war.” The Islamic State, or ISIS, took responsibility for the massacre. President Hollande closed the borders to France and issued a curfew for Paris and a state of emergency for the entire nation. 

The attacks began when one bomb was detonated outside the Stade de France, the national sports stadium, just north of the city limits of Paris. A soccer game was in progress between Germany and France, with 80,000 people at the stadium at the time, including President Hollande. The president and other fans were safely evacuated. About 5 minutes after the first attack, gunmen opened fire on patrons at a bar and a restaurant, both near the Place de la Republique. Soon after, the deadliest attack of the night took place at the Bataclan theater—a beautiful building dating to 1865 with a Chinese-style facade (front). The theater, just east of the Bastille, was holding a sold-out concert by an American rock band, the Eagles of Death Metal. Terrorists entered the theater and began shooting AK-47 assault rifles into the crowd of some 1,500 people. The terrorists then gathered up some 100 people to hold as hostages. French security forces stormed the Bataclan soon after, but the terrorists detonated explosive vests, killing themselves and 8 hostages. Eighty-nine people died at the Bataclan.

The Paris attacks came after two earlier attacks by the Islamic State in as many weeks, causing experts to fear that the group’s coordinated influence is spreading. On October 31, a Russian airliner crashed in Egypt, killing all 224 people aboard. (On November 16, Russia confirmed that the plane was brought down by a bomb planted in the plane’s cargo hold.) Russia had recently entered the fight in the Syrian civil war against both rebel groups and the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the crash. On November 12, Islamic State bombings in Beirut, Lebanon, killed more than 40 people. The bombs were set off in a Hezbollah stronghold; the group has been fighting in the Syrian civil war on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and against the Islamic State. France has been active in the fight against the Islamic State as well.

Paris had been on high alert since January 2015, when Islamist gunmen attacked the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Eleven people in the building were killed. The attacks took place over three days and resulted in the deaths of 20 people in total. Millions of people in France demonstrated to show solidarity for free speech. France then deployed thousands of soldiers around the nation to safeguard against further attacks. In August, an attack on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris was thwarted by tourists who stopped a would-be terrorist with an AK-47 rifle. 

On Saturday, November 14, police in Belgium stopped a car that had been used in the most recent attacks in Paris, leading to raids and arrests in Belgium as police searched for accomplices. A manhunt for more attackers was also underway in France. On Sunday, French warplanes launched air strikes in retaliation on the Syrian city of Ar Raqqah, the Islamic State’s de facto capital. The French strikes were reported to have hit a command center, a training facility, and an arms depot all belonging to the terrorist group. 

July 13, 2015

July 11 marked the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica (SREH breh neet sah) Massacre during the Bosnian War (1992-1995). In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica, a town in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, and massacred thousands of Bosniaks (sometimes called Bosnian Muslims) who had taken refuge there.

A Bosnian Muslim woman, Ajsa Husejnovic (left), cries with family members near the coffin of her husband. His coffin was among 136 displayed at a memorial center near Srebrenica. The coffins were scheduled for burial on July 11, 2015. Forensic scientists have worked for years to identify victims of the Srebrenica Massacre. Newly identified victims from mass graves are still being re-interred in Srebrenica.
Credit: © Amel Emric, AP Photo

Shortly after the war began, the United Nations (UN) sent peacekeeping troops to the area, mainly to protect aid shipments to war refugees. In 1993, the UN declared Srebrenica, four other towns, and the city of Sarajevo (SARuh YAY voh) to be safe areas within Bosnia. Civilians in these areas were supposed to be protected from attack. The UN stationed lightly armed Dutch soldiers in and around Srebrenica to enforce the boundaries of the safe area.

When Serb troops captured Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, the Dutch forces lacked the military strength to stop them. A group of about 15,000 Bosniaks attempted to flee the safe area, but the Serbs captured most of them. Some escaped or were killed trying to escape. The Serbs claimed that the Bosniak civilians who had not fled would be transferred to other safe areas. They separated the men from the women and children, who were sent away on buses and trucks. Over the next few days, the Serbs executed most of the men. Investigators later found evidence that the Serbs killed over 7,000 Bosniak men. The UN convicted several Bosnian Serb military leaders for their roles in the massacre.

At a solemn ceremony marking the anniversary on July 11, 2015, protestors hurled stones and bottles at Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, a former radical Serb nationalist and ally of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. During the Bosnian War, Milosevic had urged Serbs to practice the policy of ethnic cleansing—to rid Serbian-held areas of all non-Serbs. In 2001, Milosevic was arrested and delivered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. His trial on war crimes charges began in 2002, and he died in his prison cell in March 2006.

Other World Book articles 

• Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995-a Back in time article) 
• Forensic science (Uses for forensic science)
• Human rights (2001-a Back in time article) 
• War crime
• Yugoslavia: “A Decade of Ruin” (a Special report)

April 18, 2013

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate rejected a bipartisan effort to expand background checks to more buyers of firearms. The proposed legislation would have required background checks for all transactions at gun shows and online. Currently, such background checks occur only for sales handled by licensed gun dealers. Senators also voted down bans on assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines.

Political experts described the vote as a blow to the widely supported drive to curb firearms that was sparked by the massacre in December of children and staff at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. They also noted that the vote was a major defeat for President Barack Obama. The president has made broadened background checks the centerpiece of his gun control proposals. Speaking at the White House after the vote, President Obama characterized the Senate’s failure as “a pretty shameful day for Washington.” The Senate also voted down a Republican-backed bill to expand permission to carry concealed weapons.

Additional World Book article:

• National Rifle Association

June 8, 2012

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon informed the General Assembly yesterday that UN monitors were shot at trying to get to the scene of yet another massacre in Syria. According to opposition activists, at least 78 people in the village of Qubair, near Hama, were slaughtered on June 6 by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The victims included as many as 40 women and children. Condemning “this unspeakable barbarity,” Ban stated that for many months it had been evident that Assad and his government “have lost all legitimacy” as well as “its fundamental humanity.”

On May 29, major Western nations expelled Syrian diplomats in response to the May 25 massacre of 108 civilians in the Houla region of Syria. (Houla is an area northwest of the city of Homs, center of the 14-month uprising against the Assad regime.) Outrage over the killings–one of the gravest atrocities in the uprising–prompted the governments of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States to inform the various Syrian legations that top diplomats were to leave within the week.

Syria. World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc.

Members of the UN Human Rights Council believe that the Syrian army and the feared shabiha militia may have carried out both massacres. It is widely believed that the shabiha, consisting mainly of Alawite Muslims, is the Assad regime’s hired death squad. (Alawites are a mystical Sunni religious group prominent in Syria. The Assad family and most Syrian government officials are members of the sect.)

The UN Security Council has condemned the Syrian government “in the strongest possible terms.” The council pronounced the “outrageous use of violence against civilians” a violation of international law. At least 10,000 people have died in Syria since protests against the Assad regime broke out in March 2011.

Additional World Book articles:

• Diplomacy
• Hafez al-Assad
• Middle East: From Fall to Spring (a special report)
• Syria 2011 (a Back in Time article)