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| Photo Credit: Associated Press/Daniel Ochoa de Olza |
Twelve aircraft including 10
fighter jets dropped a total of 20 bombs in the biggest air strikes
since France extended its bombing campaign against the extremist group
to Syria in September, a Defense Ministry statement said. The jets
launched from sites in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, in coordination with
U.S. forces. On the
sidelines of the G20 summit in Turkey on Sunday, France's Foreign
Minister Laurent Fabius said his country was justified in taking action
in Syria. "It was normal to
take the initiative and action and France had the legitimacy to do so.
We did it already in the past, we have conducted new airstrikes in Raqqa
today, Fabius said. "One cannot be attacked harshly, and you know the
drama that is happening in Paris, without being present and active."
Meanwhile, as police announced
seven arrests and hunted for more members of the sleeper cell that
carried out the Paris attacks that killed 129 people, French officials
revealed to The Associated Press that several key suspects had been
stopped and released by police after the attack. The
arrest warrant for Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old born in Brussels,
calls him very dangerous and warns people not to intervene if they see
him.Yet police already had him in their grasp early Saturday, when they
stopped a car carrying three men near the Belgian border. By then, hours
had passed since authorities identified Abdeslam as the renter of a
Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage takers to the Paris theater where
so many died. Three French police officials
and a top French security official confirmed that officers let Abdeslam
go after checking his ID. They spoke on condition of anonymity, lacking
authorization to publicly disclose such details. Tantalizing
clues about the extent of the plot have emerged from Baghdad, where
senior Iraqi officials told the AP that France and other countries had
been warned on Thursday of an imminent attack.
An
Iraqi intelligence dispatch warned that Islamic State group leader Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi had ordered his followers to immediately launch gun and
bomb attacks and take hostages inside the countries of the coalition
fighting them in Iraq and Syria. The
Iraqi dispatch, which was obtained by the AP, provided no details on
when or where the attack would take place, and a senior French security
official told the AP that French intelligence gets these kinds of
warnings "all the time" and "every day." However, Iraqi intelligence
officials told the AP that they also warned France about specific
details: Among them, that the attackers were trained for this operation
and sent back to France from Raqqa, the Islamic State's de-facto
capital. The officials also
said that a sleeper cell in France then met with the attackers after
their training and helped them to execute the plan. There were 24 people
involved in the operation, they said: 19 attackers and five others in
charge of logistics and planning.
None of these details have been corroborated by officials of France or other Western intelligence agencies. All
these French and Iraqi security and intelligence officials spoke with
the AP on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation. Abdeslam
is one of three brothers believed to be involved; One who crossed with
him into Belgium was later arrested, and another blew himself up inside
the Bataclan theater after taking the audience hostage and firing on
them repeatedly. It was the worst of Friday's synchronized attacks,
leaving 89 fatalities and hundreds of people wounded inside.
The Islamic State group claimed
responsibility. Its statement mocked France's air attacks on suspected
IS targets in Syria and Iraq, and called Paris "the capital of
prostitution and obscenity."
In
all, three teams of attackers including seven suicide bombers attacked
the national stadium, the concert hall and nearby nightspots. The
attacks wounded 350 people, 99 of them seriously.
Abdeslam rented the black
Volkswagen Polo used by the hostage-takers, another French security
official said. A Brussels parking ticket found inside led police to at
least one of the arrests in Belgium, a French police official said. Three
Kalashnikovs were found inside another car known to have been used in
the attacks that was found in Montreuil, an eastern Parisian suburb,
another a French police official said. 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. Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon, speaking to The Associated Press
by phone, said suspects arrested in Molenbeek had been stopped
previously in Cambrai, France, "in a regular roadside check" but that
police had had no suspicion about them at the time and they were let go
quickly.
One, identified by the print on a recovered finger, was 29-year-old
Frenchman Ismael Mostefai, who had a record of petty crime and had been
flagged in 2010 for ties to Islamic radicalism, the Paris prosecutor
said. A judicial official and lawmaker Jean-Pierre Gorges confirmed his
identity. A judicial official said police have also identified two
other of the suicide bombers, both French nationals who'd been living in
Belgium: 20-year-old Bilal Hadfi, who detonated himself outside the
Stade de France; and 31-year-old Brahim Abdeslam, the brother of
fugitive Salah Abdeslam, who blew himself up on the Boulevard Voltaire. Police detained Mostefai's
father, a brother and other relatives Saturday night, and they were
still being questioned Sunday, the judicial official said.
These
details stoked fears of homegrown terrorism in France, which has
exported more jihadis than any other in Europe, and seen many return
from the fight. All three gunmen in the January attacks on the Charlie
Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket in Paris were French. The
attackers inside the Bataclan seemed quite young, according to one
survivor, Julien Pearce, a journalist at Europe 1 radio who escaped by
crawling onto the stage, and then out an exit door when the shooters
paused to reload. Before making his final dash, he got a good look at
one of the assailants, he said.
"He seemed very young. That's what struck me, his childish face, very determined, cold, calm, frightening," Pearce said. Struggling
to keep his country calm and united after an exceptionally violent
year, President Francois Hollande met Sunday with opposition leaders —
conservative rival and former President Nicolas Sarkozy as well as
increasingly popular far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has used the
attacks on Paris to advance her anti-immigrant agenda. Refugees fleeing war by the tens
of thousands fear the Paris attacks could prompt Europe to close its
doors, especially after police said a Syrian passport found next to one
attacker's body suggested its owner passed through Greece into the
European Union and on through Macedonia and Serbia last month. Paris
remains on edge amid three days of official mourning. French troops
have deployed by the thousands and tourist sites remain shuttered in one
of the most visited cities on Earth. Panic ensued Sunday night as
police abruptly cleared hundreds of mourners from the famed Place de la
Republique square, where police said firecrackers sparked a false alarm.
"Whoever starts running starts
everyone else running," said Alice Carton, city council member who was
at the square. "It's a very weird atmosphere. The sirens and screaming
are a source of fear."
Officers
also moved in, guns drawn, after mourners panicked near the Carillon
bar, where crowds have laid flowers and lit candles in memory of the 15
people killed there. "Lots of
people started running and screaming from the Carillon...tables were
overturned, plates shattered. It was a terrible panic," said Jonathan
Dogan, who took shelter in a nearby hotel. "I think people are
terrified," Dogan said.
-Associated Press-
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