Despite a ban on public gatherings, thousands had gathered spontaneously at Place de la Republique today in remembrance of the Paris attack victims.
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“This morning, Sunday, she called me very early and said ‘I’m not well, can I come to your place?’ so she arrived here this morning and she’s a complete mess, and I realised the difference between hearing about it and seeing on the news compared to actually talking to her”, says Mr Harfield.
Mr Alexander had been selling merchandise for rock band Eagles of Death Metal at the Bataclan Concert Hall when the event was targeted by attackers who shot people and took hostages before blowing themselves up as police stormed the hall.
Belgian police Saturday detained a French national who was suspected of renting a vehicle found near the attack on the Bataclan. BFMTV, according to The Guardian. “We will hit this enemy to destroy them, obviously in France and Europe … but also in Syria and Iraq”, he said. Those arrested were in contact with the Paris attackers, a senior Belgian counterterrorism source told CNN.
The logo referred to the group as The Islamic State of France.
Officials initially said there were eight attackers – as did ISIS, raising questions over whether an accomplice may still be alive.
Additionally, in another Paris attack update, a Syrian passport was found at the Stade de France near one of the dead attackers. He said, “Those who organized these attacks and those that perpetrated them are exactly those that the refugees are fleeing”.
These additional details were not corroborated by French or Western security officials.
The official, who has direct knowledge of the investigation, was not authorized to be publicly identified as speaking about the ongoing probe.
Belgian authorities have detained seven people in connection to the attacks. It was the worst of Friday’s synchronized attacks, leaving 89 fatalities and hundreds of people wounded inside.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility. World leaders condemned the attacks and offered assistance to France to overcome the crisis. While one was a suicide bomber, the other one is thought to have helped out with the logistics of the attack.
Referring to justice minister of Belgium, BBC World Service said that a few suspect linked to the attacks were held in a Brussels neighbourhood.
A French police official said a suicide attacker identified by a skin sample was believed to be living in the Paris suburbs before the attacks.
As many as three of the seven suicide bombers were French citizens, as was at least one of the men arrested in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussells, which authorities consider to be a focal point for extremists and fighters going to Syria from Belgium.
Police said the attackers appeared to be “seasoned, at first sight, and well trained” and were investigating whether they had ever been to fight in Syria, where IS has proclaimed a caliphate along with territory in neighbouring Iraq.
One name is so far known in the attacks, and that is Ismael Omar Mostefai, 29-years old, who is French and was born in Courcouronnes, which is about 15 miles from Paris, and lived in Chartres, near Paris. A judicial official and lawmaker Jean-Pierre Gorges confirmed his identity.
Meanwhile, the Mayor of Chartres said Mostefai was killed in one of the attacks and French newspaper Le Monde said he was identified from a print from his severed finger, discovered after he detonated a suicide vest inside the Bataclan.
French SWAT teams searched the brother’s home and that of Mostefai’s father, outside Paris, for three hours Saturday night, according to RTL radio.
The new information stoked fears of homegrown terrorism in a country that has exported more jihadis than any other in Europe.
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Britain’s government says it is doubling spending on aviation security and is recruiting a few 1,900 security and intelligence agents as part of Britain’s response to the terror attacks in Paris.
