Location of the Paris attacks: the Stade de France (1), Le Petit Cambodge and Le Carillon (2), La Casa Nostra (3), the Bataclan concert hall (4), and La Belle Equipe (5).
The November 2015 Paris attacks were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that occurred from the night of 13 November to the morning of 14 November 2015 in Paris, France. Eight attackers affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, divided into three teams, launched many attacks, with three of them blowing themselves up at the Stade de France and the others shooting at people eating in restaurants before three of those attackers were killed at the Bataclan concert hall and one blowing himself up in a bistro. The attacks killed 129 people and wounded 430, the deadliest terrorist attack in Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Background[]
President Francois Hollande committed France to taking part in the war on the Islamic State in the Middle East, launching Operation Chammal on 19 September 2014. In this operation, the French Air Force bombed the Islamic State's buildings and fighters, helping the ground forces of the Free Syrian Army and (more reliably) the Kurdish YPG in launching offensives against IS. France was an ally of the United States and United Kingdom in the war against the terrorists, and the Islamic State saw France as being the worst western country after the USA. France suffered from terrorist attacks in January 2015 by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which killed 19 French people, but France refused to be intimidated by terrorism and resumed its efforts to end the Islamic State's attacks on civilians in the Middle East and the rest of the world. The anti-IS coalition made several gains in 2015, with 75% of the Syrian border with Turkey being taken by the Kurds, and the city of Sinjar fell on 13 November 2015 to the Kurds. In addition, Jihadi John (the chief executioner of the Islamic State) was killed in an airstrike, a blow to the formerly-invincible image of IS.
Despite the territorial losses of the Islamic State, the West failed to combat another threat that had been persisting since the start of the conflict: the Islamic State's thousands of foreign fighters returned home from fighting in the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi Civil War to carry out attacks against their home countries. The traditional terrorist stronghold of the Molenbeek district of Brussels, Belgium was a major threat, with Belgian IS member Abdelhamid Abaaoud being held responsible for coordinating the attack on a church in France as well as the 2015 Thalys attack. The terrorist cell of Molenbeek planned a new attack against France to get revenge for France's war on IS, with Abaaoud recruiting Omar Ismael Mostefai, Bilal Hadfi, Ukasah al-Iraqi (using the passport of "Ahmad Almohammad"), Samy Amimour, Brahim Abdeslam, Salah Abdeslam, "Abbdulakbak B."/"M. al-Mahmod" (later identified as Ali al-Iraqi), Foued Mohamed-Aggad, and Chakib Akrouh. It was to be executed similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, with various attacks meant to kill as many people as possible. The targets were specifically chosen, with the Stade de France stadium being targeted due to President Hollande and the Foreign Minister of Germany being present for a French-German friendly soccer match and the Bataclan concert hall being targeted due to its hosting of an outsold concert by "The Eagles of Death Metal", an American band. The attackers were split into three teams, with the first team being three suicide bombers that would blow themselves up at the Stade de France; the second team would attack Le Petit Cambodge and Le Carillon restaurants; and the third team would go to the concert hall and fire on the crowd. The terrorists had identical suicide vests (made from TATP, utilizing peroxide) and AK-47s, with the attackers acting as if they had military training.
Attacks[]
At 9:20 PM, a loud explosion was heard at the Stade de France as the first suicide bomber detonated his vest. The explosion could be heard in both the audience and on the television, but the game continued. Five minutes later, attackers headed to the Le Carillon cafe and fired on the three people sitting outside before selecting targets inside of the cafe and killing them. Next, the attackers headed to Le Petit Cambodge Cambodian restaurant and fired at some more people. Eleven people were killed here, and the attackers proceeded to flee in vehicles.
At 9:30 PM, the next explosion occurred at the Stade de France, and President Hollande knew that this was a terrorist attack, being pictured with a shocked and sad face. Two minutes later, a man fired at people outside of La Casa Nostra restaurant and killed five people and injured eight, with the gunman firing in short bursts. At 9:36 PM, two attackers fired on the outdoor terrace of La Belle Equipe restaurant and killed 19 people while wounding 9, again fleeing in a car. At 9:40 PM, Brahim Abdeslam detonated his suicide vest on the Boulevard Voltaire at a bistro, having placed his order and sat in the cafe before blowing himself up. At that same minute, Mostefai, Foued Mohamed-Aggad, and Amimour entered the Bataclan concert hall and fired blindly at the audience, with the band escaping through the backstage doors. The attackers reloaded up to four times and fired, and they later took hostages at 10:00 PM, threatening to shoot people if they moved. The attackers then chose random people and executed them one-by-one.
At 9:53 PM, the third suicide bombing occurred at the Stade de France. The people in the audience were told to wait on the green for evacuation, and when it was safe to leave, the German and French crowd members sung "La Marsellaise" as they left through the tunnels in a touching moment of solidarity between the two melancholy groups of people. At the Bataclan, the perpetrators issued a statement mentioning Iraq and Syria, saying that the attack was in response to Hollande "harming Muslims all over the world". At 12:15 AM, the police engaged in a firefight with the terrorists, with two of them blowing themselves up rather than be captured. One of them was killed before he could blow himself up. By 12:58 AM, the siege was over, and all of the attackers were dead, ending the attack. 89 people were killed in the concert hall, the deadliest part of the attack.
A total of 129 people were killed in the attacks and 430 wounded, with 3 Belgians, 3 Chileans, 3 Spanish, 2 Algerians, 2 Egyptians, 2 Germans, 2 Mexicans, 2 Portuguese, 2 Romanians, 2 Senegalese, 2 Tunisians, one Italian, one Moroccan, one Swede, one Turk, one Briton, and one American were killed. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack the next day, and promised more attacks, including against Washington DC. Interestingly, it said that there were eight attackers who carried out the attacks, while France said that "all seven" were killed. Salah Abdeslam was later found out to have been the restaurant shooter, and he fled over the French border and into Belgium. In addition, within a few days Abdelhamid Abaaoud was identified as the mastermind of the attacks.
Perpetrators[]
Stade de France bombers[]
Bataclan shooters[]
Bars and restaurants shooters[]
Getaway driver[]
Aftermath[]
The iconic peace sign with the Eiffel Tower
The Paris attacks were called "France's 9/11" by many people, and the Je suis Charlie slogan from January 2015 was reused as Je suis Paris by other people in solidarity with the people of France. President Hollande promised a merciless response against the Islamic State, launching heavy airstrikes against the Islamic State's capital of al-Raqqah in Syria.
Several countries and organizations condemned the attacks, ranging from nations such as the United States and Russia to Muslim organizations. Ironically, the infamous terrorist groups Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad condemned the attacks, although Hezbollah was known for killing 241 US and French troops in 1983 in a suicide bombing in Beirut, 29 innocent civilians in Buenos Aires in 1992, and 85 more Argentine civilians in 1994. Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam, two Syrian Islamist rebel groups, condemned the attack, while the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front applauded the attacks despite hating the Islamic State for betraying them.
The attacks also had a deeper political impact after it became known that two of the attackers entered Europe while posing as refugees. One of them had a Syrian passport and registered as a refugee on the island of Leros in Greece, and he blew himself up at the Stade de France; another terrorist came through Greece and Macedonia and was one of the Bataclan shooters. 27 American states refused to accept Syrian refugees as a result of the attacks, with terrorism analyst Richard Clarke noting that protecting America was like a game of hockey; America could hit the puck several times, but all it took was one puck to get into the goal for them to lose. President Barack Obama refused to stop Syrian refugees from entering, saying that he would not let the Islamic State change American values, and he also refused to single out Muslims, saying that there would be no religious tests. New Orleans took in the first of 10,000 Syrian refugees soon after the attack.
The Islamic State capitalized off of this successful attack in their propaganda, threatening more attacks. With Jihadi John dead, al-Ghareeb the Algerian and al-Karar the Iraqi appearing in videos that threatened to launch a terrorist attack of the same type in Washington DC and also threatening other European countries. In the eyes of the anti-terrorist think tank Quilliam founder Maajid Nawaz, a terrorist attack in the United Kingdom was "long overdue". The sheer professionalism of the attacks in Paris led to fear among many westerners that their major cities would be under threat from terrorists, with the United States heavily increasing security in New York City on the night of 13 November 2015 when the terrorist attacks in Paris were first discovered.
Not all of the attackers were immediately identified in the attacks; shortly after the attacks, it was not known who the restaurant shooters were, who one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France was, and one of the perpetrators of the massacre of the Bataclan. Originally, it was said that Mostefai, Almuhamed, and Amimour did the Bataclan massacre, but it was later found out that Almuhamed was instead one of the Stade de France bombers. Later, Brahim Abdeslam and Abdelhamid Abaaoud were identified as the restaurant shooters, while M. al-Mahmod was discovered to be the third Stade de France bomber after Almuhamed and Bilal Hadfi. Only on 9 December 2015 was Foued Mohamed-Aggad identified as the Bataclan shooter. At that point, a third dead attacker at the restaurants was still unidentified. On 15 January 2016, he was identified as Chakib Akrouh. On 20 January 2016, International Business Times UK released an article that compared images of the fighters "Ukasah al-Iraqi" and "Ali al-Iraqi" to "Ahmad Almohammad" and "M. al-Mahmod", respectively, proving that the Islamic State was correct in the identification of the Paris attackers; Almohammad and al-Mahmod were merely pseudonyms. In addition, the revelation of the two attackers' names indicate that they are Iraqis and not Syrians, proving that their passports were completely fake.
On 18 March 2016, Salah Abdeslam was finally apprehended after four months on the run in Belgium, being shot in the leg and apprehended by Belgian police in the Molenbeek suburb of Brussels. This dispelled rumors that he had made it to Syria, and this left all of the Paris attackers either dead (the majority) or in custody.On 23 April 2018,Abdeslam was sentenced to 20 years in prison for participating in the attacks. Some people were linked to the attacks such as Osama Krayem,Salim Benghalem and Mohamed Belkaid. On 16 November 2015,there were a series of raids and arrests in France. Some Bosnian citizens were detained for suppling weapons for the attackers, and on June 27,2019 a Bosnian was arrested in Germany and extradited to Belgium. On 29 November 2019,20 people were charged for the attacks.