French Ministry of Defense announces “major bombardment” of ISIS targets in

At least two of the seven attackers who died in Paris on Friday night were Frenchmen living in Brussels.

A French survivor summed it up with one word: “Hell”. Many thought it was firecrackers or pyrotechnics.

Belgian police on Monday donned balaclavas and assault rifles as they mounted a tense hourslong standoff outside Abdeslam’s suspected hideout in the Brussels district of Molenbeek but made no arrests after storming the residence.

Earlier Monday, thousands clasped hands outside some of the bullet-riddled nightspots targeted Friday as children returned to school and city authorities vowed to resume normal life as quickly as possible. “When the music stopped, there was this haunting silence in between gunfire and I could see blood on the floor”. “We were already stigmatized before this”. Before making his final dash, he got a good look at one of the assailants, he said.

It has been reported that Abaaoud had links to thwarted attacks on a Paris-bound high-speed train and church.

The day following the attacks, the pavement in front of the Bataclan concert hall was covered with flowers, candles and messages of support in French, English, Spanish, German and Arabic.

In Paris, harrowing accounts of survival continued to emerge, particularly from the Bataclan theater, where three attackers shot into the fleeing crowd. French troops have deployed by the thousands in support of police to restore a sense of security in one of the world’s most visited cities.

Tantalizing clues about the extent of the plot have emerged from Baghdad, where senior Iraqi officials told the AP that France and other countries had been warned on Thursday of an imminent attack. In Paris, officials identified the alleged Belgian mastermind of the attacks, who is believed to be beyond reach in Syria.

Even before Friday’s attacks that killed at least 129 people, governments and counter-terrorism authorities were pointing fingers at Belgium.

It is partly that stigmatization that drove Mostefai, who was of Algerian descent, to extremism, argues Myriam Benraad, a research fellow specializing in Iraq and the Middle East at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris.

The gunmen in the concert hall were “were very calm, very methodical, very slow”, John Leader, 46, told Australia Broadcasting Corp. after escaping with his 12-year-old son.

“They weren’t in there shooting like in an American movie”, Leader said. It has also refused to send in a large number of foot soldiers, seemingly hesitating in meddling too much in the crises.

A judicial source said a 20-year-old Frenchman police identified as one of the three suicide bombers to strike at the Stade de France stadium was Bilal Hadfi. The jets launched from sites in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, in coordination with US forces.

President Francois Hollande, who was at the game, described the attacks as ‘an act of war’ and said France’s reaction would be pitiless. And now we must ask ourselves: what does France stand for? Unable to make the impact they desire in their own territory, it appears ISIS’s new battlefront is not just Iraq and Syria, but around the world. “We are going to die'”. The targets in Sunday’s airstrikes included a command center, a recruitment center, an ammunition storage base and a training camp for the terror group, said Mickael Soria, press adviser for France’s defense minister.

“He seemed very young”.

British police and spies are working closely with counterparts in France and Belgium to identify and pursue those behind the Paris massacre. Where all this is expected.

Corbett said she and Jack Konda, 21, another student from Nottingham University, escaped by crawling over “a pile of people”- they weren’t certain whether they were dead or alive- near the fire exit.

Police detained Mostefai’s father, a brother and other relatives Saturday night, and they were still being questioned Sunday, the judicial official said.

Abdeslam rented the black Volkswagen Polo used by the hostage-takers.

However, Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP they also warned France about specific details – including that the attackers were trained for this operation and sent back to France from Raqqa. The public prosecutor formally identified another bomber.

Molins, without providing an exact figure, said “very many” people had been injured in the attack at the concert hall. Dr. Philippe Juvin, an emergency room physician at the Georges Pompidou hospital, said he has never had to care for so many victims at once.

Twelve aircraft, including 10 fighter jets, were involved in the airstrikes, Soria said. “Also, the psychological trauma”.