BRUNSWICK — U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said late Friday that staff with the Senate Intelligence Committee already had begun to brief members such as himself on the terrorist attacks in Paris and that he expects to receive updates Saturday.
While it was unclear who was responsible, King said the attacks had the hallmarks of groups such as the Islamic State.
Speaking to reporters at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, King said there were some warnings over the past 24 hours about potential terrorist attacks in Europe, but that such warnings are frequent occurrences “and it’s hard to know when the real thing will follow.” He called the violence and the acts, such as firing on a crowd of concertgoers, the acts of “simple, cowardly thugs.”
“One of the concerns, and this has been a concern here since at least last summer, is the idea of ISIS not sending people to do an attack but inspiring people who either had trained with them and gone back to their homelands or were simply self-radicalized in their own country,” King said.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also a member of the Intelligence Committee, voiced those concerns earlier in the night during an interview with WCSH-TV, saying it remains to be seen whether the attackers traveled to France or had been radicalized there. She also expressed her support for the French people in a tweet.
“We stand with France,” she said.
King, asked during his appearance at Bowdoin about a potential U.S. response, replied: “I think any response we take should be in coordination with the French.”
“This is a worldwide problem and we are already dealing with it in the coalition of nations,” King said. “Interestingly enough, it is a problem that may well bring together some old rivals. ISIS is a significant threat to Russia and to Iran. They are enemies and we could see some very unusual coalitions in order to deal with a threat to any civilized nation.”
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