November 2015 Paris attacks participant Islamic State
Perpetrators
Three groups, comprising three men each, executed the attacks. They wore explosive vests and belts with identical detonators. Seven perpetrators died at the scenes of their attacks. The other two were killed five days later during the Saint-Denis police raid.On 14 November, ISIL claimed responsibility for the attacks. François Hollande said ISIL organised the attacks with help from inside France. Claimed motives were an ideological objection to Paris as a capital of abomination and perversion, retaliation for airstrikes on ISIL in Syria and Iraq, and the foreign policy of Hollande in relation to Muslims worldwide. Shortly after the attacks, ISIL's media organ, the Al-Hayat Media Group, launched a website on the dark web extolling the organisation and recommending the encrypted instant messaging service Telegram.Fabien Clain released an audio recording the day before the attacks in which he personally claimed responsibility for the attacks. Clain is known to intelligence services as a veteran jihadist belonging to ISIL, and of French nationality.Syrian and Egyptian passports were found near the bodies of two of the perpetrators at two attack sites, but Egyptian authorities said the passport belonged to a victim, Aleed Abdel-Razzak, and not one of the perpetrators. By 16 November, the focus of the French and Belgian investigation turned to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the radical jihadist they believed was the leader of the plot. Abaaoud had escaped to Syria after having been suspected in other plots in Belgium and France, including the thwarted 2015 Thalys train attack. Abaaoud had recruited an extensive network of accomplices, including two brothers, Brahim Abdeslam and Salah Abdeslam, to execute terrorist attacks; Abaaoud was killed in the Saint-Denis raid on 18 November.Most of the Paris attackers were French and Belgian born citizens of Moroccan and Algerian backgrounds who crossed borders without difficulty, albeit registered as terrorism suspects. Two other attackers were Iraqi. According to the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, several of the perpetrators had exploited Europe's immigration crisis to enter the continent undetected. At least some, including the alleged leader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, had visited Syria and returned radicalised. Jean-Charles Brisard, a French expert on terrorism, called this a change of paradigm, in that returning European citizens were themselves the attackers. The Los Angeles Times reported that more than 3,000 Europeans have travelled to Syria and joined ISIL and other radical groups.On 30 August 2016, jihadist Abu Mohammad al-Adnani was killed by an American missile and DGSI declared that his death ended the terrorist who had supervised the attacks on Brussels and Paris.