WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers believe recent attacks in Paris show the United States and its allies are in a "new phase" in the fight against violent extremist groups.

Attacks last week in Paris by individuals claiming allegiance to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula left 16 French civilians dead and three of four extremists whothat were wanted in connection.

Republican lawmakers say the attacks and the manner in which the shooters appear to have been mostly self-radicalized support their narrative of a world more unsafe than in perhaps any other era.

"I fear we are entering a new phase against terrorism ... find ourselves dealing w more terror groups, safe havens, & capability than before 9/11," Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., tweeted Monday.

"In a perverse way there's a 'Jihadi Olympic' contest between terror groups and Gold Medal goes to the one that can hit us here in America," Graham said in a second tweet.

During an interview earlier Jan. 12 with CBS News, Senate Foreign Affairs Committee member Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., suggested the US and its allies should focus more on small cells capable of attacks on the scale of the 2012 Boston Marathon bombing or last week's French shootings.

"The notion that the new wave that we're going to face with terrorism now are these sorts of — there's always the threat of another 9/11-type spectacular attack — but also the threat of individuals, or two or three individuals, operating as a cell, carrying out these sorts of attacks," Rubio said.

"We've always known that has been an aspirational goal of multiple jihadist groups around the world," Rubio said. "And now we're actually starting to see it carried out."

Newly minted Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., believes the Obama administration has done too little to guard against more attacks from small cells of self-radicalized Islamic militants.

"America needs a real strategy to defeat violent Islamic extremism and its most brutal champions like ISIS and al-Qaida," McCain said in a statement last week. "To date, this administration has failed to offer any coherent strategy, despite gathering threats to the security of our nation and our allies from the breathtaking carnage taking place in Syria in recent years.

"Without a coherent strategy to confront these threats," McCain added ominously, "we will continue to see more young men radicalized to commit more atrocities like the one on the streets of Paris yesterday."

Republican hawks are not overtly using the Paris attacks to further their years-long calls to end sequestration and hike annual Pentagon and national security budgets.

But on Jan. 9last Friday, some senior House GOP members were using what happened in and near the French capital as leverage in a coming fight with Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama over a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that likely will include controversial immigration policy riders.

The House's bill would give DHS $39.7 billion, a $400 million hike over the 2014 enacted level.

House Republicans say the French situation shows the world is too dangerous for the Senate to change or Obama to veto the House's Republican-written DHS bill.

"It's a very dangerous time," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., told reporters. Friday. "And I would wonder whether or not the president would have real deep misgivings not signing a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security."

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