Week 6:PARIS ATTACKS: France cries ‘war’ as IS claims strikes
Islamic State militants yesterday claimed a series of coordinated attacks by suicide bombers and gunmen in Paris that killed at least 128 people at a concert hall, restaurants and the national sports stadium.
French President Francois Hollande also blamed the group and called the coordinated assault on Friday night at six different sites an “act of war.”
“Faced with war, the country must take appropriate action,” Hollande said, without saying what that meant.
Hollande said he would address the French parliament tomorrow in an extraordinary meeting and the nation would observe three days of official mourning for those killed in Friday’s attacks.
At least eight militants, all wearing suicide vests, brought unprecedented violence to the streets of the French capital in the worst attacks in Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
In the bloodiest part of a night of violence, four men armed with AK-47s and shouting “Allahu Akbar” stormed into a rock concert at the Bataclan theater in eastern Paris, gunning down at least 82 people and taking dozens hostage.
“They didn’t stop firing. There was blood everywhere, corpses everywhere. Everyone was trying to flee,” said Pierre Janaszak, a radio presenter who was at the concert by US rock band Eagles of Death Metal.
The gunmen were heard raging at Hollande and his decision in September to begin airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Syria.
“I clearly heard them say: ‘It’s the fault of Hollande, it’s the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria,’” Janaszak said.
Later yesterday, the Islamic State distributed an undated video threatening to attack France if bombings of its fighters continued.
The group’s foreign media arm, al-Hayat Media Center, made threats through several militants, who called on French Muslims to carry out attacks.
“As long as you keep bombing, you will not live in peace. You will even fear traveling to the market,” said one of the militants, identified as Abu Maryam the Frenchman.
The location of the Islamic State fighters in the video was not clear and it was not possible to determine when it was filmed, but the message was unmistakable.
The militants, who appeared to be French citizens, sat cross-legged in a group wearing fatigues and holding weapons in what appeared to be a wooded area.
The video showed the militants burning passports.
“Indeed you have been ordered to fight the infidel wherever you find him — what are you waiting for? There are weapons and cars available and targets ready to be hit,” Abu Maryam said.
Another militant, identified as Abu Salman al-Fransi, said: “Even poison is available, so poison the water and food of at least one of the enemies of Allah.”
“Terrorize them and do not allow them to sleep due to fear and horror,” he added.
French officials have spoken frequently of their fears that hundreds of French citizens thought to be fighting with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq would return to France and launch attacks.
France has taken part in US-led airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq for more than a year and in September began bombing the group in Syria, claiming to have hit a training camp and an oil installation.
In a statement issued online yesterday morning, the Islamic State said that “eight brothers wearing explosive belts and carrying assault rifles” conducted a “blessed attack on ... crusader France.”
The death toll of 128 does not include the eight attackers.
The assault also left at least 250 wounded, 100 of them seriously.
Hollande said the multiple attacks across Paris were “an act of war ... committed by a terrorist army, DAESH, against France,” using an Arabic acronym for the group.
No arrests had been made by early yesterday morning and the nation was in a state of emergency, decreed by Hollande on Friday night.
Hollande himself had to be hastily evacuated from the Stade de France when suicide bombers struck outside during a friendly soccer game between France and Germany.
At first, few of the crowd appeared to grasp the significance of what was happening and the game continued. When news began filtering in, people surged onto the turf in chaotic scenes.
The worst of the killing occurred at the Bataclan music venue in the trendy 11th arrondissement, where more than 1,000 rock fans were at the sellout show.
As screams rang out and people ran over the injured or dead to make their ways to the exits or places to hide, the militants took hostages and began executing them.
“We heard people screaming — the hostages particularly — and the threats from the kidnappers,” said another survivor, 34-year-old Charles.
Along with about 20 others, he fled to a toilet where he pushed through the ceiling and hid in the cavity.
Three of the militants blew up their explosive belts as heavily armed anti-terror police raided the venues at about 12:30am, while a fourth was shot dead.
Another attacker blew himself up in nearby Boulevard Voltaire, as the streets were filled with the sound of police sirens and convoys of ambulances shipping hundreds of injured people to hospitals.
A police officer who took part in the storming of the building told reporters: “It was horrible inside, a bloodbath, people shot in the head, people who were shot as they were lying on the ground.”
Several restaurants near the concert hall were also targeted, including a popular Cambodian eatery in the trendy Canal St Martin area, where bars and restaurants were thronged with young revelers.
Paris prosecutor’s spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre told reporters she could not exclude the possibility that some attackers might still be at large.
Authorities were searching for possible accomplices.
Hollande condemned the attacks as terrorism and pledged that France would stand firm against its foes.
“A determined France, a united France, a France that joins together and a France that will not allow itself to be staggered even if today, there is infinite emotion faced with this disaster, this tragedy, which is an abomination, because it is barbarism,” Hollande said.
“This is a terrible ordeal that again assails us,” Hollande said in a nationally televised address. “We know where it comes from, who these criminals are, who these terrorists are.”
France has heightened security measures ahead of a global climate conference that is to start in two weeks, out of fear of violent protests and potential terrorist attacks.
Hollande canceled a planned trip to this weekend’s G20 summit in Turkey, which was to focus in large part on growing fears of terrorism carried out by Muslim extremists.
Structure of the Lead:
WHO- suicide bombers and gunmen
WHEN- 2015/11/13
WHAT-France cries ‘war’ as IS claims strikes;suicide bombers and gunmen in Paris that killed at least 128 people at a concert hall, restaurants and the national sports stadium.
WHY-not given
WHERE-in Paris,France
HOW-Wearing suicide vests, brought unprecedented violence to the streets of the French capital in the worst attacks in Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
gunmen 槍手
parliament 議會
mourn 悼
intervene 干預
unprecedented 空前的