The mayor of the French city of Chartres, Jean-Pierre Gorges, identified Mostefai as a resident in a Facebook post. “He was 25 at the time”.
Advertisement
The militants launched six gun and bomb attacks over the course of 20 minutes on Friday in areas of the capital packed with people.
Islamic State said it carried out the attacks on “carefully chosen targets” and were a response to France’s involvement in the air strikes on it in Syria and Iraq.
Dem, a childhood friend who wants to be identified only by his first name out of privacy concerns, described Mostefai as not especially religious. These included driving without a licence.
“It’s crazy, insane. I was in Paris myself last night, I saw what a mess it was”, Mostefai’s older brother told AFP before being detained after voluntarily attending a police station on Saturday. His brothers were not as devout, however, and were known in the neighbourhood to sell drugs, resulting in several police raids of the house.
“I didn’t wait for the state of emergency to track down radical imams who preach hatred and to address places of worship where they preach that hatred”, Cazeneuve said in an interview with France 2 TV.
It is understood he gave himself up to police voluntarily.
His brother said he hadn’t been in contact with his brother for years and the last he was aware Mostefai was in Algeria. “It’s on the Internet that these young people are misled into a false jihad”.
Three of the eight terrorists have now been identified: the two men with the Syrian and Egyptian passports outside the stadium, and the known French extremist killed at the Bataclan. If so, this would increase the pressure on French intelligence services in a country that has exported more jihadis than any other in Europe, and where security services are challenged by monitoring those who return.
French media, citing sources close to the investigation, said Mr. Mostefai and his father were regular attendees of the Mohsinine Mosque in the Charters suburb of Lucé.
Outside the small mosque building next to high-rise council blocks in Lucé, Abdallah Benali from the team that had been running the mosque since 2013 said they did not know Mostefai and that the mosque respected the law and had always worked with all authorities.
Molins said in a press conference that Mostefai had an “S” file on him for years, which means investigators believe he had been “radicalized” in a few way, though it was not clear whether he would act on his radicalization. He condemened the attacks outright.
European officials said they can not confirm the authenticity of the passports or if they, in fact, belonged to the bombers because there is a robust black market for Syrian passports which are purchased by people looking to get into the European Union under refugee status.
Advertisement
Police, however, say Mr. Mostefai was on a supervision list since 2010. NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the spire will remain lit blue, white and red on Sunday.
