First Suspect Identified in Paris Attacks Was a French Citizen
A suspect has been identified in the tragic attacks that left 129 dead and hundreds wounded in Paris Friday night.
Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, 29, a French citizen who was one of three attackers who took and killed hostages at the Bataclan concert hall, according to The New York Times.
Mostefaï was publicly identified by the mayor of Chartres, a town where he previously lived, in a Facebook post. Paris prosecutor François Molins said that Mostefaï had been arrested before, and was known by the government to be influenced by extremist Islamist beliefs.
According to the Belgian Federal Prosecutor, seven people have also been arrested in connection with the attacks in Brussels. On Saturday, officials detained a man who was linked to a rented Volkswagen Polo that was meant as a getaway car by attackers at the Bataclan concert hall.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is claiming that it has killed a leading member of the Islamic State, the group that claimed responsibility for the attacks. On Saturday, an F-15 fighter jet strike reportedly killed the group’s leader in Libya, Abu Nabil al-Anbari, according to Agence France-Presse. The Pentagon said that the strike on al-Anbari was ordered before the attacks in Paris.
The strike comes just days after the U.S. government announced that it was “reasonably sure” it had assassinated the ISIS executioner known as “Jihadi John” by way of a drone strike in Syria.
