An angry President Francois Hollande on Saturday promised a “merciless” response to a wave of attacks by gunmen and bombers that killed 129 people across Paris, describing the assault claimed by Islamic State as an act of war against France.
“France will be merciless towards these barbarians from Dae’sh,” he said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.
In the worst attack, a Paris city hall official said four gunmen systematically killed at least 87 people at a rock concert by an American band at the Bataclan concert hall before anti-terrorist commandos launched an assault.
Some 40 more people were killed in five other attacks in the Paris region, the official said, including a double suicide bombing outside the Stade de France stadium, where Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching a soccer game.
The assaults came as France, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks, raising questions about how the attacks were able to occur.
It was the worst such attack in Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, in which 191 died.
He announced three days of national mourning as the tally of the dead and injured trickled in from emergency services. So far, 129 have been reported dead and 352 injured, according to the BBC. Ninety-nine people are in critical condition.
Hollande said the attacks had been organised from abroad by Islamic State “barbarians,” with internal help. Sources close to the investigation said a Syrian passport had been found near the body of one of the suicide bombers.
In its claim of responsibility, Islamic State said the attacks were a response to France’s military campaign.
It also distributed an undated video in which a militant said France would not live peacefully as long as it took part in US-led bombing raids against Islamic State.
“As long as you keep bombing you will not live in peace. You will even fear travelling to the market,” said a bearded Arabic-speaking militant, flanked by other fighters.
State of emergency
After being whisked from the stadium near the blasts, Hollande declared a state of emergency, for just the second time within its own borders since World War II.
The last time was in November 2005 when the death of two teenagers of immigrant descent sparked countrywide riots.
The country had imposed a state of emergency only in the former colony of Algeria in 1955, 1958 and 1961. In December 1984, the then-French prime minister and current Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius imposed the emergency law on New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific.
The attacks by assault rifle-wielding suicide bombers has been described as the worst attack on on French soil since World War II.
Gunmen and bombers attacked a football stadium, busy restaurants, bars and a concert hall at locations around the French capital on Friday night.
The French government said it plans to go ahead with the COP21 climate change conference due to be held at the end of the month, Reuters reported quoting a senior French diplomatic source on Saturday.
’Concert gunman was French’
One of the gunmen who died after attacking a Paris concert hall on Friday had French nationality and was known to have ties with Islamist militants, a source close to the inquiry into a series of deadly attacks in Paris said on Saturday.
The same source said that the gunman’s body had been identified by his fingerprints and that he was from the Courcouronnes suburb south of Paris.
Earlier, sources close to the investigation said that a Syrian passport had been found near the body of one of the suicide bombers who blew himself up near a soccer stadium in one of the other attacks.
French media also said that an Egyptian passport had been found near the body of a second suicide bomber at the site.
Syrian passport
The holder of a Syrian passport found near the body of one of the gunmen who died in the attack on the Stade de France passed though Greece in October, a Greek minister said.
“The holder of the passport passed through the island of Leros on October 3, 2015, where he was identified according to EU rules,” said Greece’s deputy minister in charge of police, Nikos Toskas, in a statement.
A Greek police source said the passport’s owner was a young man who had arrived in Leros with a group of 69 refugees and had his fingerprints taken by authorities there. Police declined to give his name.
Toskas did not know if the passport was checked by other countries through which the holder possibly passed on his way to France.
Belgian arrests
Belgian police on Saturday arrested several people in Brussels, Reuters reports.
A Belgian car was seen near the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, according to witness accounts.
In a Twitter message, Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said “multiple searches and arrests” had been made and that they were related to a vehicle with a Belgian number plate.
A Justice Ministry spokeswoman said she could not confirm the precise number of arrests or give any further details.
The website of the public broadcaster RTBF quoted a source close to the operations as saying there had been “between two and three searches, linked to the Paris attacks” and that five people had been arrested.
German connection?
A man arrested in Germany’s southern state of Bavaria in early November after guns and explosives were found in his car may be linked to Friday’s deadly assault in Paris, Bavaria’s state premier said on Saturday.
“We have an arrest ... where there are reasonable grounds for presuming that it might be related to the matter,” Horst Seehofer said in a speech at a local party congress of the Christian Democrats.
Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the 51-year old from Montenegro, described by Montenegrin authorities as a Christian Orthodox man, had an address in Paris as destination in his vehicle navigation system.
“Whether that means there is a connection [to the attacks] or not is being investigated,” de Maiziere said after an emergency meeting of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s security cabinet in Berlin.
Scene of carnage
Concert-goer Audrey Renée told the Dhaka Tribune via Google Hangout: “I still can’t stop shaking. There was a stampede as soon as the gunmen started shooting, and I, along with several others, stumbled and somehow got out of the venue. I am grateful that I somehow made it alive and I mourn for those who couldn’t.”
Renowned Bangladeshi mime artist Partha Pratim Majumder, who received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the highest French award for culture, in 2011, and a Paris resident, told Kolkata-based daily Anandabazar Patrika: “I have never felt such horror in my life. I could have been in any of the spots the assailants targeted. I have received dozens of phone calls from around the world asking for my whereabouts and whether I am alright.”
From Paris, another Bangladeshi-origin French citizen Rafique Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune over Viber: “My daughters were scheduled to go over to one of their friends’ house for a sleepover. Right after the news broke, we decided to cancel the event.”
Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Saturday, the French Ambassador to Dhaka Sophie Aubert said her country would not succumb to terror.
She said: “France has been struck at its heart, but France is strong, and will not succumb to terror spread by obscurantist and barbaric enemies of our civilisation.”
