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By InHomelandSecurity Staff

Breaking News: CNN and several outlets are now reporting that U.S. Special Forces assisted in the Mali rescue today after the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako came under siege in what appears to be an organized terror attack nearly one week after the Paris attacks. Bamako is the capital of the West African Republic of Mali.

[See CNN’s special video report]

Initial reports according to CNN indicate armed gunmen accessed the hotel with some “ease” because the vehicles they arrived in had diplomatic plates. Security forces responded with a counterassault to free the hostages taken and that “U.S. military assets have been removing Americans to safety.” Approximately 170 guests may have been taken hostage, according to CNN’s Mali hotel attack report, and that there are no more hostages inside the hotel.

One of the most interesting facts about the terrorist attacks in Paris is that a pair of brothers was involved. For the intelligence analyst, understanding family connections in a terror group is critical. Counterterror analysts go to great lengths to understand the organization of terrorist and extremist groups in an effort to profile and predict their operations. AMU’s Erik Kleinsmith, a former Army Intelligence Officer, discusses how the appearance of brothers and other family members within a terror organization can provide counterterrorism analysts with potential patterns and trends that require further analysis. Here are seven things to consider.

Putting Paris in Perspective–the terrorist events in Paris are a complex human tragedy that will challenge the emergency management field to craft appropriate responses and mitigation actions. Here are a few considerations.

The attacks in Paris were unlike other recent homegrown or ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks here in the U.S. and abroad since it appears to have been a well-planned and coordinated complex attack. At this early stage, it appears that this most recent attack in Paris employed a hybrid mix of homegrown terrorists, formerly returned foreign fighters, as well as possible covert infiltration of at least one terrorist as a refugee. What strategy should the U.S. deploy to counter ISIL? AMU professor Jeffrey Gardner writes about how our intelligence agencies and special operations forces need to fight smartly with regional nations.