I.S.’s claim of responsibility accused France of “striking Muslims in the caliphate with their aircraft”, and threatened further attacks “as long as it continues its Crusader campaign”.
Advertisement
A French police official has named the alleged mastermind of a deadly string of suicide bombings and shootings in Paris as known Belgian extremist Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
The band on the Bataclan’s stage during the attack, USA rock group Eagles of Death Metal, survived but have cut short their European tour to return to the United States, promoters said.
The national police identified the suspect as 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, born in Brussels.
France denounced Friday’s strikes on bars, a concert hall and soccer stadium in Paris as an act of war and vowed to destroy Islamic State, which it has been targeting with air strikes in Syria as part of a US-led coalition.
“The one who is responsible for the attacks in Paris can not be put at equal foot with real refugees, with asylum-seeekers”, he said.
Three teams of suspects carried out six separate attacks, officials said, before seven attackers were killed by detonating their explosive belts.
UPDATE at 12:33 p.m. Sunday- French police have issued an alert for Salah Abdeslam, and a manhunt is now underway. Now, his whereabouts are unknown.
One of his brothers had detonated a suicide vest down the street from the theater; another was ultimately detained in Belgium, officials said.
At least three of those killed in the Paris attacks were Belgian and the country launched its own anti-terrorist investigation into the events as a result. Mostefai was identified from a severed finger found at the Bataclan concert venue, the site of one of the attacks.
French media cited local residents as saying he had been influenced by a visiting radical Imam from Belgium in 2010, the same year that the Paris prosecutor said his security file for Islamist radicalisation was created.
Monday’s fresh raid was carried out as Belgium’s Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said authorities would be taking “more action” in the area. One suicide bomber who blew himself up in the Bataclan music hall Friday night was Samy Amimour, a 28-year-old Frenchman charged in a terrorism investigation in 2012.
Guy van Vlierden, a Belgian terrorism expert, said Hadfi is thought to have fought in Syria, where he went by the names Abu Moudjahid Al-Belgiki and Bilal Al Mouhajir.
While the French and Belgian links look strong, the direct connection to Syria and the Middle East is harder to pin down.
The worldwide reach of their network prompted French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to call for an urgent European Union meeting to assess what new security measures the bloc needs to counter such threats. To assist in preventing future attacks, the leaders of the G-20 group of major economies will likely announce stepped up efforts Sunday to cut off financing for terror groups and disrupt recruitment operations, according to two officials familiar with a draft communique.
His name was on a Syrian passport found alongside his body.
An Egyptian passport was also found near the stadium, but it belonged to a victim, not an attacker. Greek officials have confirmed that the passport entered Greece a few months back, though French officials have not confirmed whom it belongs to. CNN has not independently verified that the men were picked up by authorities.
The alleged link between one of the attackers and the wave of refugees from the Syrian war flocking to Europe this year has intensified concerns about how to handle the massive influx of people.
“The fear that terrorists are hiding amongst refugees will increase and will be used by anti-immigrant politicians”, said Karen Jacobsen, who directs the Refugees and Forced Migration program at Tufts University’s Feinstein global Center.
The square, where Channel 4 News was broadcasting live at the time, was reopened after it was confirmed the panic was the result of a false alarm.
Police are seen outside a restaurant in 10th arrondissement of the French capital Paris.
Advertisement
Speaking almost 24 hours after the start of Friday night’s attacks, Molins outlined the sequence of the attacks, and said investigators had traced records related to one of the vehicles they used to Belgium, where three arrests were made.
