French Ex-Pats Say All Muslims Should Not Be Blamed For Terror Attacks

LOS FELIZ (CBSLA.com) — French-Americans say they are horrified by the terror attacks in their home country, but that blame should not be heaped wholesale on Muslims.

French ex-pat Carole Killen and other French-born Americans have been gathering at Figaro Bistro in Los Feliz, glued to news coverage following mass shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo Magazine, where 12 people were killed.

"I cried today. It was too much for me," Killeen said.

French security forces on Friday killed two al-Qaida-linked brothers suspected in the mass shooting, along with an associate who held hostages in a market in another section of Paris. Three of the market hostages also died in the clash with authorities.

The bistro's owner, who is half Arabic, says the world must stand up against terror but that blame should not fall on all Muslims.

"Like any country in the world, we got some troubled people," Yoann Mgaieth said. "But we have to protest for this freedom of writing."

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has called on Muslim clerics to condemn the attacks.

"This is the time where 6,000 Muslim clergy in France should speak to the issue. Isn't this a horrible atrocity?" Hier said at a news conference.

The Islamic Center of southern California says that is being done even though news conferences aren't being held to say so.

"When this terrorist attacks a cartoonist, or an innocent civilian, they're attacking our faith, they're attacking our prophet, the one they're purporting to be defending," said Jihad Turk of the Islamic Center of Southern California.