The gunmen in the Paris terrorist attack that killed at least 12 people on Wednesday were trained militants, according to experts who spoke to ABC News.
"They carried out the operation in a very calm, controlled way," said Richard Clarke, former White House counter-terrorism advisor and current ABC News consultant. "They appear to have fire discipline, not spraying bullets everywhere. They were people who did not look like they were wild, on some kind of spree, but who were accomplishing a military operation."
Another expert, a former Army special operations counter-terrorism official, agreed and said it appeared the masked, AK-47-weilding attackers likely had conducted extensive reconnaissance on their target in order to have struck so effectively and manage to escape, all without appearing to panic.
"I don’t think you can act like the way I’m seeing them act… and be on your first rodeo," he said.
Steve Gomez, former head of the Counter-Terrorism Division for the FBI in Los Angeles, told ABC News that the attack "appeared markedly different from recent ‘lone wolf’ attacks."