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 Speaking to U.S. Embassy staff in France after attacks last Friday
that killed 129 people, Kerry sought to contrast the two incidents,
saying the Charlie Hebdo killings appeared to have a motivation,
while those last week were indiscriminate.
The magazine had angered some Muslims by publishing cartoons
depicting the Prophet Mohammad and Islamic themes. The gunmen who
attacked the magazine's offices were shown on video shouting: "We
have avenged the Prophet Mohammad."
Referring to Friday's attacks, Kerry said: "There's something
different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think
everybody would feel that."
"There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a
legitimacy in terms of - not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you
could attach yourself to somehow and say, OK, they're really angry
because of this and that," Kerry said.
"This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn't to aggrieve
one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people," he
added.
Republican Senator John McCain, who was defeated by Democrat Barack
Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, denounced Kerry, who
is a fellow Vietnam War veteran and worked alongside him in the
Senate for years.
"It does reveal an underlying view of these things that is really
harmful and ... that is damaging," McCain told Fox News. "John Kerry
has probably been the most inept secretary of state, certainly in my
lifetime."
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Republican presidential candidate George Pataki, a former New York
governor, called on Twitter for Kerry to resign. Several other
Republican presidential contenders, including former Florida
Governor Jeb Bush, also criticized Kerry for the remarks.
State Department spokesman John Kirby, asked at a briefing about
Kerry's comment, told reporters the secretary was simply citing the
militants' own rationale for the attack on Charlie Hebdo, not trying
to say it was justified.
He added that Kerry had said in Paris after both attacks that "no
act of terrorism is justified, and there can be no rationale for the
senseless, indiscriminate killing of innocent people."
(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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