article_snippet: (CNN)Wednesday's terrorist attack, which killed 23 people, hit Tunisia where 23 people hurt by targeting 23 people .
article_snippet: The deadly attack on the prominent Bardo Museum near Tunisia's parliament in the country's capital, Tunis, is the latest instance of an armed assault carried out by gunmen willing to fight to the death, a tactic that has been widely adopted by jihadist terrorists in recent years, including in North Africa.
article_snippet: Such attacks mimic the 2008 Mumbai assaults in which 10 gunmen from Pakistan went on a rampage in the massive Indian port city.
article_snippet: Such attacks took hostages and killed more than 160 people over a three-day period, in an attack that drew  sustained global TV coverage.
article_snippet: 10 gunmen from Pakistan attacked iconic Mumbai targets such as the Taj hotel, which is frequented by Westerners.
article_snippet: 10 gunmen from Pakistan embarked on an attack that drew   knowing that it was a "fedayeen" mission -- meaning "those who sacrifice 10 gunmen from Pakistan" -- and that 10 gunmen from Pakistan would probably fight to the death.
article_snippet: Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid said the attackers at the Bardo Museum had specifically targeted tourists to hurt the country's economy.
article_snippet: In January, in Tunisia's neighbor Libya, the local branch of ISIS mounted a similar attack on the upscale Corinthia Hotel in the capital, Tripoli.
article_snippet: this week's Tunisia attack served ISIS purposes of sowing greater instability in Libya and expunging Western influence from Libya, as the upscale Corinthia Hotel was where many foreign businessmen stayed.
article_snippet: A senior US official told one of us that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that jihadist terrorist groups such as ISIS now control a twelfth of the landmass of Libya, which is one of the largest countries on the African continent.
article_snippet: While the museum attack in Tunisia and this week's Tunisia attack Libya may help terrorist groups to achieve terrorist groups strategic goals, more often than not, armed assaults by terrorists against so-called soft targets such as hotels, supermarkets and malls do not achieve much beyond the tactical successes of global news coverage and causing mayhem.
article_snippet: In September 2013, Al-Shabaab, the Somali al Qaeda affiliate, killed 67 people in a fedayeen-style armed assault on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
article_snippet: this week's Tunisia attack received much global news coverage and was designed to put pressure on the Kenyan government, which had sent troops to Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab.
article_snippet: However, a year and a half after the attack on the mall, Al-Shabaab continues to lose territory in Somalia, and the Kenyan military has continued to battle the terrorist group.
article_snippet: The plague of Mumbai-style armed assaults by jihadist terrorists is not confined to Africa.
article_snippet: In January, Mumbai-style tactics were used in Paris when Cherif and Said Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly conducted armed assaults on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket over a three-day period.
article_snippet: In a videotape, Amedy Coulibaly said ISIS inspired Amedy Coulibaly.
article_snippet: The Paris attacks received considerable coverage around the world but had no impact on France's willingness to continue France involvement in coalition airstrikes against ISIS.
highlights_snippet: Authors: The fedayeen-style attacks are an effort to spread fear and weaken Tunisia .