France “is at war” after Friday’s attacks on Paris that killed 129 people and injured over 300 others, President Francois Hollande has told a rare joint session of both houses of parliament.
Hollande said he intends to table a bill to extend the state of emergency declared after Friday’s attacks by another three months.
“Terrorism will not destory the Republic, because it is the Republic that will destroy terrorism,” Hollande told French lawmakers.
Hollande said he plans to meet with US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days to discuss the situation in Syria.
“Syria has become the biggest manufacturer of terrorists in the world,” Hollande said.
Hollande also said that he has requested a meeting of the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on fighting against terrorism.
He vowed that France will intensify its operations against the Islamic State militants in Syria who have claimed responsibility for Friday’s carnage.
Hollande also promised to beef up the manpower and the capabilities of French security forces.
Police raids
French police raided 168 locations across the country and detained 23 people as authorities identified more members of a sleeper cell said to be behind the Paris attacks.
French and Belgian Islamist militants — and at least one potential Syrian member — are believed to be behind multiple attacks on bars, restaurants, a concert hall and a stadium in Paris on Friday. The mastermind is said to be a Belgian national linked to thwarted earlier attacks on a train and a French church.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said police recovered a Kalashnikov assault rifle and grenade launchers during the overnight raids. French authorities believe more attacks are being planned in France and other European countries.
Belgian connection
Heavily armed Belgian police staged a major operation in the Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels, which authorities consider to be a focal point for extremists and fighters going to Syria from Belgium. The operation took three hours with shots and explosions being heard.
Belgian police say two people arrested on Saturday have been charged with “participating in a terrorist attack”.
They were among seven people detained in Belgium at the weekend.
Across France and throughout Europe, people paused for a minute’s silence at noon French time in memory of the victims.
Overnight, France launched its heaviest airstrikes yet on the Islamic State group’s de-facto capital in Syria, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said “we are at war” against terrorism.
French authorities say Sunday night’s airstrikes destroyed an ISIS training camp and a munitions dump in the city of Raqqa, where Iraqi intelligence officials say the attacks on Paris were planned.
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.
Three teams of attackers including seven suicide bombers attacked the national stadium, the concert hall and nearby nightspots Friday. In addition to those killed, the attacks wounded 350 people, 99 of them seriously.
French authorities have identified several suspected attackers, most with links to France or Belgium.
A French official identified the suspected mastermind as Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is said to be linked to the thwarted attacks on a Paris-bound high-speed train and a Paris area church earlier this year. The official has direct knowledge of the investigation but is not authorized to be publicly identified as speaking about the probe.
As efforts were being made to capture those behind the attacks, more details have emerged of those who carried them out.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Monday one of the suicide bombers who blew himself up in the Bataclan music hall Friday night was Samy Amimour, a 28-year-old Frenchman charged in a terrorism investigation in 2012. Amimour was placed under judicial supervision, but dropped off authorities’ radar in 2013 and an international arrest warrant was issued.
An attacker who blew himself up outside the national soccer stadium was said to have been found with a Syrian passport with the name Ahmad Al Mohammad, a 25-year-old born in Idlib. The prosecutor’s office said fingerprints from the attacker match those of someone who passed through Greece in October.
Another, said to have been 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.
A judicial official said police have also identified two other 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, who blew himself up on the Boulevard Voltaire.
Suspect still on the run
At least one key suspect is on the loose. The arrest warrant for 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam — brother of bomber Brahim — describes him as very dangerous and warns people not to intervene if they see him.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Its statement mocked France’s air attacks on suspected ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq, and called Paris “the capital of prostitution and obscenity.”
The identification of several French suspects 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.
In the worst of Friday’s attacks, gunmen stormed the Bataclan theater during a rock concert, taking the audience hostage and firing on them repeatedly. Eighty-nine people were killed and many more wounded.
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.
With files from The Canadian Press
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