FRANCE MOURNS, VOWS REVENGE
TERRORIST ATTACKS: While Notre Dame’s bells chimed, jets in Syria were fuelling up
As the bells of Notre Dame cathedral echoed over central Paris Sunday in memory of the victims of Friday night’s terror attacks, French jets were already fuelling up for a strike on the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa, Syria.
“The first target destroyed was used by as a command post, jihadist recruitment centre and arms and munitions depot. The second held a terrorist training camp,” read a Sunday night statement by the French ministry of defence.
As the French capital cleaned up the bullet holes and bloodstains of an assault for the second time this year, President François Hollande promised “merciless” revenge as the still-edgy city echoed with talk of war.
As of Sunday night, the death toll for Friday’s attacks was at least 129, but with as many as 100 coping with critical injuries, the figure may rise in the coming days. The bulk of the victims died in Le Batalan, a historic music venue that was hosting a sold-out show by the Eagles of Death Metal when three men with assault rifles began firing into the crowd.
According to an Iraqi intelligence briefing obtained by The Associated Press, the Paris attacks appear to have been planned in Raqqa, Syria, the defacto capital of ISIL’s self-styled caliphate. French authorities have confirmed three teams of ISIL-trained attackers carried out the coordinated assaults.
Of the seven attackers killed Friday night, only one, a French national, has been officially identified.
Omar Mostefai, 29, was known by authorities since 2010 to have held radical Islamist beliefs, is believed to have travelled to Syria in the winter of 2013.
“That is when we lost track of him,” said a French police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A petty criminal, Mostefai was picked up between 2004 and 2010 for eight minor offences, including driving without a licence. When Mostefai was 13 years old, his family received an eviction notice because of his criminal tendencies.
“Ismael was kind of a trouble maker; he used to steal things, like mobile phones,” said Kamel Ousti, 53, a neighbour and family friend.
French police also issued a warrant for the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, a 26-yearold man born in Belgium. The brother of one of the attack’s suicide bombers, Abdeslam is alleged to have helped with logistics and rented one of the cars used in the attack.
Friday’s victims included citizens of Chile, Belgium, Morocco, Tunisia, Romania and Italy, Great Britain and the United States. And given the terrorists’ choice of targets — restaurants and entertainment venues — many were under the age of 30.
A video by concert attendee Seb Snow captures the moment the attack began at Le Bataclan. The band stops playing when interrupted by a burst of automatic gunfire. There is no screaming in the initial seconds because many in the darkened theatre suspected it was a pyrotechnic effect.
“It wasn’t just a terrorist attack, it was a massacre,” wrote one of the survivors in a Facebook post that has since gone viral.
“Cries of grown men who held their girlfriends dead bodies pierced the small music venue … I pretended to be dead for over an hour, lying among people who could see their loved ones motionless.”
Julien Pearce is a Europe 1 reporter who hid in a small room at the outset of the attack and sprinted for the exit as the attackers reloaded.
“They seemed very young, that’s what struck me; juvenile faces, extremely determined, cold, calm, scary,” he said of watching the attackers.
Pearce was among dozens of people who survived purely by chance.
One man was on his mobile phone when a large piece of debris slammed into his head from one of three suicide bombs detonated outside Paris’ Stade de France.
The phone took the brunt of the impact. Otherwise, he told news cameras, “My head would be in pieces.”
ANTALYA, Turkey — The Liberal government has doubled down on its plan to withdraw Canadian military aircraft from Iraq and Syria, and to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year.
But it has also signalled a willingness to consider other options for fighting Islamic State.
Friday’s terrorist attacks on Paris — and the question of how to respond — have cast a pall over this Mediterranean resort where leaders from the 20 richest nations have gathered to rub shoulders and debate how to solve the big challenges facing the world.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which killed at least 129 and injured more than 300 others. French President Francois Hollande has declared the attacks an act of war. U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders have reiterated the importance of continuing to fight the extremist group.
The attacks offered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau an easy excuse to break his promise to end Canada’s participation in the U.S.-led bombing mission against Islamic State. He also could have used questions over whether some of the Paris attackers masqueraded as refugees to soften his pledge about the 25,000 Syrians.
Instead, Trudeau has said little about either the attacks or Islamic State since Friday. But as the G20 leaders met over dinner Sunday to discuss the Syrian refugee crisis and terrorism, Finance Minister Bill Morneau told reporters the attacks had not changed the Liberal government’s plans.
“We have committed to bringing back the CF-18s,” he said, adding that the government also plans to press ahead with its plans to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees. “We believe it’s something we can do responsibly. And we believe that will be important not only for Canadians but for our international partners to see.”
But Morneau also said Canada is “committed to the coalition” to fight Islamic State, and that a team of ministers is looking at a new course of action. “We believe that we do need to be part of the fight to degrade and destroy (the group). We only question the way we should best do that.”
Speaking on background because he can’t be named under the government’s protocols, a senior official in Trudeau’s office said the prime minister believes every country has a special role to play in the fight against the militant group. He noted the Canadian military’s recent history of training foreign forces, including the Kurds in northern Iraq, as well as providing humanitarian assistance.
Polls earlier this year suggested the majority of Canadians agreed with the previous Conservative government’s decision to bomb Islamic State, and there may be popular support for even greater action in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
But Trudeau has previously said part of the reason he wanted to withdraw the CF-18s from Iraq and Syria was because he feared that if he didn’t, Canada would become even more deeply embroiled in an openended conflict in one of the most complex and troubled regions of the world.
But during an earlier meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Obama said the Paris attacks were an “attack on the civilized world,” and that the U.S. stands by France in hunting down the perpetrators. Other leaders expressed a similar sentiment.
The only public comment from Trudeau on the weekend about the Paris attacks came at the start of a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, where he said he had spoken to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale as well as police and security officials to ensure Canadians remain safe. Trudeau did not hold a news conference on Saturday or Sunday.