Paris suicide vests mark change of tactics and new threat
PARIS: The suicide vests used by Friday’s attackers in Paris – a first in France – were made by a highly skilled professional who could still be at large in Europe, intelligence and security experts say.
All seven of the militants wore identical explosive vests and did not hesitate to blow themselves up – a worrying change of tactic for jihadists targeting France. Unlike the attacks in London in 2005 where the bombers’ explosives were stored in backpacks, Friday’s attackers used the sort of suicide vests normally associated with bombings in the Middle East.
“Suicide vest s require a munitions specialist. To make a reliable and effective explosive is not something anyone can do,” a former French intelligence chief told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“A munitions specialist is someone who is used to handling explosives, who knows how to make them, to arrange them in a way that the belt or vest is not so unwieldy that the person can’t move,” he added.
“And it must also not blow up by accident.” French authorities say the vests appeared to have been made with TATP, or acetone peroxyde, that is easy for amateurs to make at home but is highly unstable. The vests also included a battery, a detonation button and shrapnel to maximise injuries.
“They didn’t bring these vests from Syria: the more you shake these things, the more you multiply the risks. It’s very likely he is here, in France or Europe, one or several guys who have come back from jihadist areas and who learned over there,” said the former intelligence chief. Three specialists contacted by AFP said it was probable the vests were made by someone outside the group that carried out the attacks.
“The explosive specialist is too precious. He never participates in attacks,” said Alain Chouet, a former director at France’s DGSE external intelligence agency.
“So he’s around, somewhere. The bomb-maker is not cannon fodder,” added Pierre Martinet, another former DGSE official who now works in corporate security.
“He’s there to make more suicide vests and allow other guys to carry out actions.” Making a vest is extremely complicated.
“It can’t be done in a couple of days. It takes weeks of training, and you have to work under the watch of a ‘ master’. It ’ s meticulous work,” said the former intelligence chief. On the eve of the UN global climate conference in the northern suburbs of Paris later this month, followed by New Year’s celebrations and next year’s Euro 2016 football championships, concerns are high.
“It’s extremely worrying. Every service is on tenterhooks,” said the retired intelligence chief who asked not to be named. — AFP
PARIS: French police have identified the first attacker out of the three teams of gunmen who carried out the worst post-war attacks in Paris, which killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more.
The Islamic State group has claimed the carnage carried out at some of the French capital’s most popular nightspots, including a sold- out concert hall, restaurants and bars and outside France’s national stadium.
The seven attackers — six blew themselves up and one was shot by police — are the first to ever carry out suicide bombings on French soil and, unlike those who killed 17 in Paris in January, were unknown to security services.
Investigators in France, Belgium, Greece and Germany are now trying to find out who these men were, how they carried out such a vast coordinated attack, and why.
France
Police have identified one of the gunmen who blew himself up at the Bataclan concert hall, the scene of the bloodiest attack where 89 people were killed, as 29-year- old Paris native Omar Ismail Mostefai.
Six people close to him, including his father and 34-year- old brother, have been taken into custody by police. A source close to the probe said investigators were searching the homes of friends and relatives of the killer.
Mostefai, whose identity was confirmed using a severed fingertip, was known as being close to radical Islam, but had never been linked to terrorism.
Police said the attackers appeared to be “seasoned, at first sight, and well trained” and were investigating whether they had ever been to fight in Syria, where IS has proclaimed a caliphate along with territory in neighbouring Iraq.
A black Seat car used by some of the gunmen has been found in the eastern suburb of Montreuil, police sources told AFP early on Sunday.