Yesterday morning, three masked gunmen stormed the headquarters of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. The attackers forced one of the cartoonists to open the door with a security code. They then headed straight towards the paper’s editor, Stephane Charbonnier, better known as Charb, who was in an editorial staff meeting. During the encounter the gunmen killed Charb, his bodyguard, and many more journalists. Minutes later the attackers left the building and shot a police officer and escaped with a vehicle. In the end, ten journalists and two police officers were killed, resulting in the deadliest terrorist attack on French soil in fifty years. Representatives of ISIS quickly praised the massacre as an act of revenge for the magazine’s insults against Islam and the Prophet Muhammed. But a closer look at the long term implications reveals a more complex and profound motive that is meant to shake Europe and radicalize European muslims.