French police have identified the first of seven gunmen who killed at least 129 people in a wave of car-nage claimed by the Islamic State group, as international investigators stepped up their probes into Paris’s worst ever attacks.
French authorities Saturday named the first attacker as 29-year-old Omar Ismail Mostefai, who was identified from a severed finger found at Bataclan concert hall, scene of the worst of the bloodshed.
IS jihadists said they were behind the gun and suicide attacks that left a trail of destruction at a sold-out concert hall, at restaurants and bars, and outside France’s Stade de France national stadium.
President Francois Hollande called the coordinated assault on Friday night an “act of war” as the capi-tal’s normally bustling streets fell eerily quiet, 10 months after attacks on magazine Charlie Hebdo shocked the nation.
Meanwhile the investigation widened across Europe, with Belgian police arresting several suspects and German authorities probing a possible link to a man recently found with a car of explosives.
The discovery of a Syrian passport near the body of one attacker has raised suspicions some of the as-sailants might have entered Europe as part of an influx of people fleeing Syria’s civil war.
“We confirm that the (Syrian) passport holder came through the Greek island of Leros on October 3, where he was registered under EU rules,” said the Greek minister for citizen protection, Nikos Toskas.
The attacks sent shockwaves around the world, with London’s Tower Bridge, Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and the World Trade Center in New York among the many landmarks lit up in the red, white and blue of the French national flag in a show of solidarity.
US President Barack Obama described the onslaught as “an attack on all of humanity” and an emotional Pope Francis said he was “shaken” by the “inhuman” attacks.
European investigation
Analysts at Eurasia Group said the attacks “confirm a structural shift in the modus operandi of the Is-lamic State, and represent a prelude to additional attacks in the West.”
The investigation into the attack spread beyond France on Saturday as Belgian police arrested several suspects in Brussels, including one who was in Paris at the time of the carnage.
The arrests — local media said three people were detained — were in connection with a vehicle found near the Bataclan concert hall, they said.
In Germany, the authorities said they were looking into a possible link between the attacks and the ar-rest in Bavaria last week of a man with a car-load of weapons and explosives.
The Paris attacks were “prepared, organised and planned overseas, with help from inside (France),” Hollande said.
In Greece — the main entry point into Europe for hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing conflict and misery — police were investigating a possible Syrian connection to the Paris attacks, though they did not rule out that the Syrian passport may have changed hands before the assault.
Within conflict-torn Syria, residents and activists from some of the areas worst affected by over four years of bombings and war, joined the global outcry over the carnage in Paris.
“We extend our hands to all the people that love peace and freedom, most of all the French people,” res-idents of the besieged town of Douma near Damascus wrote in an open letter.