French detectives are gradually managing to identify the attackers who murdered at least 129 people in Paris on Friday and to accumulate more information about them. The following is an overview of the basic facts about the individual presumed perpetrators as reported by the international media.
Attackers at the Stade de France football stadium
Three men blew themselves up near the stadium where a friendly football match between France and Germany was being played.
1. The first attacker attempted to pass through security controls inside the stadium but was halted by security. He blew himself up at 21:20 in the Rue Rimet near the entrance to Sector D of the stadium. He killed one other person in addition to himself.
Near the scene of that attack a Syrian passport was found in the name of Ahmad Muhammad, which belongs to a 25-year-old man originally from the Syrian town of Halab. That passport, according to the Greek authorities, was used by a refugee who was registered on entry into Greece at the beginning of October.
The same travel document was then used by a migrant registered by authorities in the Serbian town of Preševo on 7 October. It is not clear whether the passport is authentic or whether it is somehow connected to the Paris attacker.
2. The second attacker, who has not yet been identified, blew himself up at 21:30 in Rue Rimet near the entrance to Sector H. He did not kill anyone else.
3. A third attacker was identified by police as a 20-year-old French citizen named Bilal Hadfi. He blew himself up at 21:30 in Rue de la Cokerie near a McDonald’s fast food outlet. No one else died besides him.
Attackers at the Bataclan concert hall
Three men drove up to the building in a grey Volkswagen Polo. They used firearms to attack the audience in the concert hall and took some survivors as hostages. A total of 89 people died there. Police raided the building at 0:30 on Saturday. One attacker died after police gunfire set off his explosive vest, the other two blew themselves up.
4. The first attacker at Bataclan was identified by his fingerprints as 29-year-old Frenchman Ismail Mostefai. According to the prosecutor, Mostefai had long had problems with the law. He has eight records in the criminal registry between 2004 and 2010, but he has never been imprisoned. Police are attempting to verify information that he may have visited Syria several years ago. In France seven persons associated with him were detained over the weekend, including his brother and father.
5. A second attacker at Bataclan was identified by police today as Samy Amimour. He is a Frenchman born in 1987. He lived in the town of Bobigny, which is part of the Parisian metropolitan area, and where his family also lives, according to the media. Last night the police raided that town.
6. The third attacker at Bataclan has yet to be identified by police. Belgian police arrested at least seven men in Brussels who were most probably involved with the rented car in which the assailants traveled to commit their attack. That car had Belgian license plates.
Attackers at the restaurants
Fontaine au roi. At least 36 people died.
The shooters used a black Seat Leon to perpetrate the attacks; it was found by police on Sunday morning in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil. There were three Kalashnikovs in the car, which had been rented in Belgium.
7. Another attacker blew himself up at 21:40 in a restaurant on the Boulevard Voltaire, approximately a kilometer away from the sites of the other tragic restaurant attacks. He was the only person to die; the explosives he used were identical to those used at the Stade de France stadium. Authorities identified him as Brahim Abdeslam, a 31-year-old Frenchman living in Belgium.
Police arrested Brahim Abdeslam’s 26-year-old brother, Salah Abdeslam, in Belgium today after announcing a search for him on Sunday – a police patrol had already asked him to identify himself on Saturday at the Belgian-French borders but then released him. Media report that he was the person who rented the Volkswagen Polo that transported the three suicide attackers to the Bataclan concert hall. Another brother of theirs, Mohamed Abdeslam, was arrested over the weekend in Brussels.
