Share

Paris attacks: Hollande vows to ‘destroy’ Isis with further air strikes

Other suspected attackers have been identified, including Ismael Omar Mostefai, a 29-year-old French citizen from the Paris suburbs who authorities say was radicalized in 2010 but wasn’t known to be associated with a terrorist group.

Advertisement

He paid tribute to the 129 who lost their lives in the attacks, their loved ones, and the 99 people who remain in a critical condition after the shooting and suicide bomb attacks on bars, restaurants, a concert venue and France’s national football stadium.

“Today, our country is in mourning”, Hollande said.

Hollande said that he would travel to Washington to meet his American counterpart and Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart to strengthen the fight against ISIS.

Valls said more than 150 police raids have been carried out under the state of emergency across France since Friday.

Abaaoud said he was stopped by security officials after the Verviers raid and police failed to match him with a photograph of him that was obtained while he was in Syria.

We’ll update this post throughout the day, so make sure to refresh the page for the latest. The official did not specify who those three attackers were.

– The iconic Eiffel Tower lit up in Paris Monday in the colors of the French flag.

That phrase – fluctuat nec mergitur – translates from Latin as “tossed but not sunk”.

He warned that France needed “to prepare ourselves for further attacks”.

“We must draw the lessons on the situation in Syria”, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the main centre-right Republicans party, said after meeting Hollande on Sunday, calling for “an inflection of our foreign policy”. “Tonight, we are all Parisians”, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at a lighting ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

“That’s what struck me: his childish face, very determined, cold, calm, frightening”, Mr Pearce said.

Boulevard Saint-Germain, usually bustling with cars and pedestrians, was eerily quiet. “I need to take it to Parliament; I need to convince more people”.

At a Paris school, a father said, “It’s hard to let them go off to school and for us to return to work, for everyone”.

Update at 11:03 a.m. ET.

Members of parliament from all parties gave him a standing ovation and sang the “Marseillaise” national anthem. Presently, 104 jihadists have been placed under house arrest while 23 have been arrested.

– He would seek a resolution from the United Nations to fight terrorism. This would mean dismantling the European Union.

– He would move an aircraft carrier from France to the Middle East. America had to start bombing targets in Syria alone. Since previous year the United States has been bombing a few ISIS locations with little to no results.

The announcement came as authorities worldwide struggled to pinpoint those responsible for the deadliest attacks on France since World War II.

The French president is still speaking. The group had reportedly planned to kill police officers in Belgium.

Update at 10:12 a.m. ET.

President Hollande also vowed to intensify strikes in Syria against so-called Islamic State. In his very first recorded speech, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State, threatened America.

“That will lead to higher spending, which I take responsibility for”, Hollande said. There’s only one way we are going to diminish them and that is by taking them out, because they are growing.

Update at 9:42 a.m. ET.

French officials believe that six of the people directly involved in the attacks had spent time in Syria, BFMTV reported Monday.

Update at 9:09 a.m. ET.

Seth Jones, director of the worldwide Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND, joins Here & Now’s Indira Lakshmanan to discuss whether this marks a change in the group’s strategy. No such thing. The French republic has overcome other obstacles and is still here.

Advertisement

Iraqi officials said their intelligence agency suggested that 19 attackers and five back-up activists committed the carnage, an assertion not publicly supported by Western intelligence agencies.

President Obama's face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Turkey was low key- but high stakes as the United States tries to shape the international offensive against ISIS in the wake of the Paris terror attack