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| President François Hollande of France in Paris on Saturday. Attackers at a rock concert reportedly mentioned him by name. Credit Ian Langsdon/European Pressphoto Agency |
Warplanes Focus on City of Raqqa
France launched the assault after President François Hollande held a meeting Saturday with senior security officials. The French government announced it hit up to 30 targets in Raqqa, the militant group's de facto capital. The operation, carried out in coordination with U.S. forces, struck a command centre, recruitment centre for jihadists, a munitions depot and a training camp for fighters.
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| This terrorist was identified as Bilal Hadfi, 20, who had spent time fighting with ISIS in Syria before returning to Europe and detonating his suicide vest at the Stade de France |
The Paris terrorist attacks were carried out with the help of three French brothers living in Belgium, the authorities said on Sunday.
The French authorities said they were seeking Abdeslam Salah, 26, and described him as dangerous. The police warned the public: “Do not intervene on your own, under any circumstances.” Belgian officials said that his brother Ibrahim had died in the three-hour massacre and that another brother, Mohamed, had been detained Saturday in the Molenbeek area of Brussels.
The carefully coordinated attacks on Friday night, believed to be the work of the Islamic State, increasingly appear to have involved extensive planning by a network of men with sophisticated weapons who plotted the attack from outside the country.
The Salah brothers lived in Molenbeek, an impoverished section of Brussels that is mostly populated by immigrants from the Arab world and that has been linked to violence. “We don’t have control of the situation in Molenbeek at present,” Mr. Jambon told VRT, a television channel.
Paris Bloodshed May Be the Latest of Many ISIS Attacks Around the World.
The Islamic State has been expanding beyond its base in Iraq and Syria since it declared a caliphate, or Islamic state, in June 2014. The group is focused on three parallel tracks, according to Harleen Gambhir, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War:
Inciting regional conflict with attacks in Iraq and Syria;
Building relationships with jihadist groups that can carry out military operations across the Middle East and North Africa;
and inspiring, and sometimes helping, ISIS sympathizers to conduct attacks in the West.
“The goal,” Ms. Gambhir said, “is that through these regional affiliates and through efforts to create chaos in the wider world, the organization will be able to expand, and perhaps incite a global apocalyptic war.”
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On Saturday morning, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks across Paris, saying 'eight brothers wearing explosive belts and carrying assault rifles' conducted a 'blessed attack on... Crusader France'.
On Saturday afternoon, three people travelling in a grey VW Polo were arrested at the French/Belgian border when police traced the car after it was sighted outside the Bataclan theatre at the time of the attacks.
One of the Stade de France suspects was found carrying a Syrian passport under the name Ahmed Almuhamed who travelled to France as a migrant through Greece on October 3. Ferry tickets reveal he travelled with another man named as Mohammed Almuhamed.
However, the French minister of justice Christiane Taubira said on Sunday that the passport under the name Ahmed Almuhamed was a fake.
Omar Ismaël Mostefai, 29, from Courcouronnes, Paris was also named as a Bataclan suicide bomber. The petty criminal and father-of-one was known to police as a radical and had travelled to Algeria and Syria. He was identified by the fingerprint on a severed digit found after he detonated his suicide belt.
Mostefai is believed to have been radicalised by a Belgian hate preacher of Moroccan descent claimed to have regularly preached at his mosque in South West France. His father, a brother and other family members have been held and are being questioned.
The black Seat Leon used by the terrorists who murdered diners outside the Casa Nostra pizza restaurant and the La Belle Équipe cafe was found abandoned 20 minutes away in Montreuil with a cache of weapons inside.
Seven people were detained in Belgium linked to the atrocities - three at the border and four in Brussels. Five are from the Molenbeek area of Brussels known as a 'den of terrorists'.
Iraqi spies warned the West of an ISIS suicide bomber threat the day before the Paris atrocities, it was revealed on Sunday, as more details of major intelligence failures began to emerge. The US-led coalition in Syria was apparently told by Iraqi security sources that 24 extremists were involved in the terror operation planned in the ISIS capital Raqqa and it would involve 19 attackers including five others including bombmakers and planners. No detail was given of when or where an attack might take place.
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From as far back as August, France's authorities possessed information that militants were said to be planning attacks on French concert halls after a tip-off was received from a 30-year-old man who was detained on his way back from Syria.
On Sunday night there were 42 people still said to be in intensive care in hospital following Friday's terrorist attacks.
French police are still hunting for three gunmen on the run, including Brussels-born Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, and an ISIS bombmaker likely to have made the suicide vests.
An international arrest warrant has been issued for Abdeslam, 26, who is accused of renting a Volkswagen Polo used by the suicide bombers. He is one of three brothers believed to be at the heart of the eight-strong ISIS cell.
It emerged on Sunday night that police found Abdeslam near the Belgian border early Saturday but let him go after he showed them his ID card. Officers pulled over the car being driven by Abdelslam on Saturday morning on the A2 motorway between Paris and Brussels. Two other men were also in the Seat car. At the time, officers in Paris knew that Abdeslam had rented the car used by the killers which had been abandoned near the theatre but the information had not been transmitted to those responsible for conducting the border checks.
His brother Ibrahim, 31, blew himself up in a solo attack outside cafe Comptoir Voltaire after renting a black Seat found abandoned today filled with AK-47s and ammunition. A third sibling, named as Mohamed Abdeslam, has been arrested in the Belgian capital.
On Sunday evening the French defence ministry announced that the country's warplanes had bombed Islamic State's stronghold in Syria's Raqa, destroying a command post and a training camp, the defence ministry said. Ten fighter jets were involved, dropping 20 bombs
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3318765/Paris-terror-suspects-arrested-Brussels-car-given-fine.html#ixzz3rdGVCzGy
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There have now been a string of arrests in connection with the terror attacks across central Paris locations on Friday. The arrests so far include:
Saturday afternoon: Three people are arrested at the French/Belgian border after police trace their car after it was sighted in Paris at the time of the attacks.
Saturday evening: Police arrest seven people in the St Jans Molenbeek district of Brussels after a discarded parking ticket found in the VW Polo seen outside the Bataclan theatre led police there. It is confirmed two of the attackers live in Brussels, with one from the Molenbeek area.
Saturday night: Suicide bomber Omar Ismail Mostefai, 29, is identified by his finger, which was found among the carnage at the Bataclan concert hall, and confirmed as one of the terrorists responsible. He killed himself in the attack but six of his family members, including his father, 34-year-old brother and sister-in-law, are arrested in France and their homes searched.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3318765/Paris-terror-suspects-arrested-Brussels-car-given-fine.html#ixzz3rdHM8XOQ
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