Seven Militants Led Deadly Paris Attacks
Islamic State claims responsibility as death toll rises to 129 people; three suspects arrested in Belgium
PARIS—Seven people, including one man who was previously flagged as a security risk by French authorities because of his radical beliefs, killed 129 people over half an hour on Friday evening in multiple attacks around the French capital, Paris prosecutor François Molins said Saturday.
Belgian authorities arrested three people Saturday because they were suspected of helping provide a car used in one of the attacks, said Mr. Molins, who is leading the investigation.
In addition, the first results of the multinational investigation contained a troubling finding: a Syrian passport near the body of one of the attackers was registered by refugee authorities on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea near Turkey. That raises the possibility the man slipped into Europe in the mass of refugees who are fleeing the Syrian conflict.
The Paris attacks, which killed at least 129 people and injured at least 352, began at the Stade de France during a match between the national soccer teams of France and Germany, Mr. Molins said. Two attackers set off suicide vests at the stadium, killing themselves and one other person.
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Around 9:30 p.m., gunmen in a black SEAT car drove around eastern Paris, firing at the customers at several restaurants. The car arrived at Le Bataclan at 9:40 p.m., where three gunmen entered the theater and killed dozens of people.
All the gunmen wore suicide vests containing the explosive TATP, a chemical used in other terrorist attacks such as the London bombings of 2005, Mr. Molins said. All the attackers either killed themselves by detonating their vests or were shot by police, he said.
Earlier Saturday, French President François Hollande vowed a “merciless” response to Islamic State, claiming the extremist group was responsible for the coordinated attacks and left the French capital in a state of shock.
“It is an act of war that was waged by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, by Daesh, against France,” Mr. Hollande said, using an Arabic name for Islamic State. “This act of war was prepared and planned from the outside, with accomplices inside,” he added, saying France would respond to the attacks.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks on a social media account but didn’t provide specific information that would allow the claim to be verified. It said the attacks were retaliation for French airstrikes against the group in Syria and Iraq.
“France, because it was freely, cowardly attacked, will be merciless against the terrorists,” Mr. Hollande said in an address to the nation broadcast on television. “France will triumph over barbarism.”
Mr. Hollande didn’t cite intelligence or give an explanation for attributing the attacks to Islamic State.
Separately, Belgian police carried out multiple raids and arrests Saturday in connection with the Paris attacks, Belgian and European officials said.
A rental car with Belgian license plates was found near Le Bataclan led police to conduct multiple raids in the St. Jans Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels.
At a news conference Saturday night, Eric Van Der Sypt, a Belgian federal prosecutor, didn’t reveal the nationalities of the people they have arrested. Prosecutors also didn’t say if the people who had been arrested had criminal records or were known to intelligence authorities.
Authorities said early Saturday they believed all the attackers were dead.
The authorities found the Syrian passport near the body of one of the attackers, Mr. Molins said, though the name in the passport wasn’t known to French security services.
In Greece, a senior government official said the holder of that passport crossed into the European Union through the Greek island of Leros on Oct. 3.
“We do not know if the passport was checked by other countries which its holder probably passed through,” said Nikos Toskas, Greece’s deputy citizen’s protection minister, who is in charge of the police.
The French government declared a state of emergency, reinstituting border checks and closing schools. In addition,
Mr. Hollande declared three days of mourning and said he would address the two houses of parliament in Versailles on Monday.
Famed Parisian museums such as the Louvre and departments stores such as Le Printemps and Les Galeries Lafayettes closed Saturday. Many other shops were also shut, leaving the city’s normally busy streets less bustling than usual.
The attacks were shaping up to be the bloodiest consequence yet of France’s entanglement in Syria’s civil war. Hundreds of French have traveled to Syria since 2011 to fight with groups there, and more than 400 remain there.
The complexity of the French assaults—coordinated by multiple attackers at six locations—plus their apparent use of suicide belts suggests that they had support from an extensive terrorist network, terrorism experts said.
“They must have had several kilograms of explosives, they had suicide vests and they did blow themselves up,” said Thomas Hegghammer, director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. “All of that is very rare on European soil.”
The most deadly attack was a shootout at Le Bataclan, a concert hall, where hostages were taken before gunman blew themselves up using explosive belts when police moved in, authorities said.
There were other shootings in the city’s 10th and 11th arrondissements and at least two explosions outside the Stade de France soccer stadium.
The assaults are the second time this year Paris has come under attack by marauding gunmen. In January, the capital was hit by attackers claiming allegiance to Islamic State and an al Qaeda affiliate who killed 17 people, including many at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
World leaders condemned the attacks and offered to support the French authorities in bringing those responsible to justice.
President Barack Obama on Friday branded the attacks as a terrorist act and vowed U.S. assistance in a nationally televised address.
Photo Gallery: Around the World, Tributes to Victims of Paris Attacks
People around the world mourned for the victims of Friday’s terror attacks in Paris.
On Saturday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Americans were among those injured in the attacks. He declined to provide further information about how many people were involved or who they were but said the U.S. would release further information.
“The United States Embassy in Paris is working round the clock to assist American citizens affected by this tragedy,” he said. “The U.S. government is working closely with French authorities to identify American victims. We are aware there are Americans among the injured, and are offering them the full range of consular assistance.”
Top European officials also condemned the attacks and expressed deep shock but also their solidarity with France and the French people.
“This attack is an outrage against France, and against Europe as a whole,” Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, wrote in a letter to Mr. Hollande.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi offered Mr. Hollande condolences and expressed Egypt’s solidarity with France, Mr. Sisi’s office said in a statement.
“President Hollande lauded the role Egypt plays in combating terrorism and noted that France intends on strengthening cooperation with Egypt in this area in the near future,” Mr. Sisi’s office said in a statement.
Egypt has purchased multiple French weapons systems, including jet fighters and helicopter carriers,which Mr. Sisi says his military intends to use to counter a violent insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula. The restive area is home to Sinai Province, an Islamic State affiliate that claimed the Oct. 31 downing of a Russian passenger jet that killed 224 people shortly after takeoff from the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El Sheikh.
—Sam Dagher, Viktoria Dendrinou, Noemie Bisserbe, Jason Chow, Tamer El-Ghobashy and Felicia Schwartz contributed to this article.
Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com, Thomas Varela at thomas.varela@wsj.com and Inti Landauro at inti.landauro@wsj.com
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