By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
The city of Paris (capital of France) experienced a night of terror on November 13, 2015. Eight terrorists linked to the organization Islamic State carried out attacks, with AK-47 rifles, machine guns and bombs against French and other nationals civilians in six different points of the city. In total, 129 people died and around 350 were injured. These November 13 attacks are among the bloodiest attacks ever carried out by radical Islamic groups, second only to the attacks of September 11, 2001 against the United States, promoted by the terrorist network Al-Qaeda , at the time commanded by Osama Bin Laden .
The attacks took place between 9:16 pm and early morning on the 14th. The first act was the explosion of a suicide bomber in the surroundings of the Stade de France , located in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. The Stade de France is the football stadium that hosted the opening and final game of the 1998 World Cup. At the time of the explosion, a match between the French and English teams was taking place in the stadium, watched by thousands of spectators, among them the French President François Holland .
This first act of terror was followed, at 9:20 pm, by an attack with rifle and machine gun fire on two restaurants in one of the busiest areas of Paris. Le Carillon establishments and Le Petit Cambodge they were full of people. Dozens of them died immediately, many more were injured. About ten minutes later, another explosion occurred near the Stade de France:another suicide bomber detonated a belt with explosives. By then, the Parisian police were already aware that the city was being targeted. The French president was removed from the stadium by security and police, and the thousands of people who watched the game had to go to the center of the field to seek safety and receive more information about what was happening in the city.
Minutes later, the same terrorists who shot at the aforementioned restaurants killed dozens more people in two other very busy parts of Paris:the restaurants Casa Nostra and La Belle Équipe . The terrorists opened fire indiscriminately and then fled in a car with a Belgian license plate, according to some witnesses. The terrorists' next target was the concert hall Bataclan , where an American rock band was performing.
The invasion of the Bataclan by the terrorists took place around 9:45 pm. As they did in the four establishments mentioned, four heavily armed terrorists entered the venue and opened fire on those present. Most of the public managed to escape, but the terrorists still held about 80 hostages. At the same time that terror was taking place in the Bataclan, a third explosion occurred in the vicinity of the Stade de France. The entire city of Paris was on alert and chaotic.
The Parisian police went to the Bataclan, surrounded the concert hall and prepared to invade the place and release the hostages, given that no negotiation was possible. The break-in attempt took place after 00:30. When they realized that a possible confrontation with the police was imminent, the four terrorists detonated their explosive belts, killing everyone inside the Bataclan. The investigations that took place in the days following the attack proved that the eight terrorists were Europeans (Belgian and French) who had received training in Syria and returned to Europe to carry out the attacks.
At least two of the eight involved had lived in the Molenbeek neighborhood, in Brussels, Belgium. This neighborhood is considered by experts in counterterrorism a stronghold of cells of Islamic extremist groups. In addition, the Parisian police discovered that the mastermind of the attacks, the Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was in Saint-Denis, near the Stade de France. On the 18th of November, the police raided the place where Abaaoud was and killed him. At the same location, a female suicide bomber died after triggering her explosive belt. It is important to note that Abaaoud , who spent about two years in Syria fighting with the Islamic State, grew up in Molenbeek and likely enticed, or helped to entice, the other terrorists who participated in the Paris bombing.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks in a letter on 15 November. In that letter, there is the following excerpt:
“Allah blessed our brothers and gave them what they desired. They detonated the explosive belts on the masses of disbelievers after running out of ammunition. May Allah accept them among the martyrs and allow us to join them. Let France and all who follow her path know that they will continue to be the main targets of the Islamic State and that they will continue to smell death as long as they follow the path of the Crusades, as long as they dare to insult our Prophet, and as long as they boast of their war against Islam in France and its air offensives against Muslims in the land of the Caliphate. This is just the beginning. And it is also a warning for those who want to meditate and learn lessons.”
In this passage we can see the tenor of the Islamic State's extremism, which, when referring to western nations (and the dead), use the term "crusades", referring to the Crusades from the Middle Ages, that is, to the past in which Christian kingdoms fought against Muslim expansion across European territory. It is clear the objective of a war of “civilizational conceptions” that the Caliphate of the Islamic State tries to carry out.