Although many details concerning the Friday night attacks that killed at least 129 people in Paris remain unknown, Islamic State has claimed responsibility. France and all other countries taking part in the Syrian conflict should keep in mind Russia's recent experience with this kind of terrorism: It won't cease until the epicenter is dealt with.

French President Francois Hollande said on Saturday morning that the attacks were "an act of war" carried out by a jihadist "army." That may be true in a sense, even if it turns out that some of the attackers were untrained or French residents or citizens (eyewitnesses of the who saw attackers fire randomly into the crowd at the Bataclan concert venue said they spoke French without a foreign accent).

Four of the eight known attackers — three in the vicinity of Stade de France, where the French soccer team was playing Germany, and one on Boulevard Voltaire — blew themselves up without causing any major damage. Only one civilian casualty was attributed to these botched attacks.