Ireland must face up to the inevitable threat of IS terrorism

The ‘success’ of the Paris attacks will embolden IS to repeat the exercise and will encourage copycat assaults by ‘lone wolf’ attackers throughout the EU — including Ireland, writes Tom Clonan 

Events in Paris over the weekend mark a paradigm shift in the capacity and intent of Islamic State terrorism.

In terms of capacity, there were key features to Friday’s attacks that mark them apart from previous IS operations. Unlike the Charlie Hebdo killings in January and the botched high-speed train attack in August, the perpetrators of the Bataclan Theatre massacre acted in a calm, methodical, and indiscriminate fashion.