French police have been patrolling the streets of Paris since the attack. Photo / AP
French police have been patrolling the streets of Paris since the attack. Photo / AP
In an indication that Isis (Islamic State) retains a capacity to strike after the Paris attacks, Iraqi intelligence said there were 24 people involved in the French operation.
Isis claimed responsibility for the gun and bomb attacks on a stadium, a concert hall and cafes that killed 129 people and wounded 350, 99 of them seriously. At least eight assailants in three death squads are thought to have directly carried out the assault. Six detonated their suicide belts. Police shot and killed one. French police were seeking an eighth suspect: Salah Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national.
Senior Iraqi intelligence officials had warned members of the United States-led coalition fighting Isis of imminent assaults just a day before the deadly attacks.
Iraqi intelligence sent a dispatch saying the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had ordered an attack on coalition countries fighting against them in Iraq and Syria, as well as on Iran and Russia, through bombings or other attacks in the days ahead.
The dispatch said the Iraqis had no specific details on when or where the attack would take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets this kind of communication "all the time" and "every day".
Without commenting specifically on the Iraqi warning, a senior US intelligence official said he was not aware of any threat information sent to Western governments that was specific enough to have thwarted the Paris attacks. Officials from the US, French and other Western governments have expressed worries for months about Isis-inspired attacks by militants who fought in Syria, the official noted. In recent weeks, the sense of danger had spiked.
Six senior Iraqi officials confirmed the information in the dispatch, a copy of which was obtained by AP, and four of these intelligence officials said they also warned France specifically of a potential attack.
Image 1 of 16: A bird flies in front of the Eiffel Tower ,which remained closed on the first of three days of national mourning. Photo / Daniel Ochoa de Olza
Among the other warnings cited by Iraqi officials: that the Paris attacks appear to have been planned in Raqqa, Syria - Isis' de-facto capital - where the attackers were trained specifically for this operation and with the intention of sending them to France.
The officials also said a sleeper cell in France then met the attackers after their training and helped them to execute the plan. There were 24 people involved in the operation, they said: 19 attackers and five others in charge of logistics and planning.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari told journalists in Vienna yesterday that Iraqi intelligence agencies had obtained information that some countries would be targeted, including France, the US and Iran, and had shared the intelligence with those countries.
The suicide belts used by the attackers - a first in France - were made by a highly-skilled professional who could still be at large in Europe, intelligence and security experts say.
All seven of the assailants who died wore identical explosive vests and did not hesitate to blow themselves up - a worrying change of tactic for jihadists targeting France.
"Suicide vests require a munitions specialist. To make a reliable and effective explosive is not something anyone can do," a former French intelligence chief said. "A munitions specialist is someone who is used to handling explosives, who knows how to make them, to arrange them in a way that the belt or vest is not so unwieldy that the person can't move," he added. "And it must also not blow up by accident."
But a key question about Saturday is why the three attackers outside the Stade de France blew themselves up in near-deserted areas, killing only one person. "It makes no sense," said a police source. "If you wanted to cause carnage, you act at the moment when spectators are entering or leaving the stadium."
Image 1 of 15: Chloe Boissinot, confirmed dead in Paris following the terrorist attacks 13 November 2015. Photo supplied /twitter
Only an hour earlier, a bombing could have caused dozens of fatalities and triggered a deadly stampede.
The most likely explanation, said the ex-intelligence chief, is that the attacks were timed to coincide precisely with those in central Paris.
"They were maybe not too smart and even though they weren't in the right position, they blew themselves up at the agreed time," he said.
French authorities say the belts appeared to have been made with TATP, or acetone peroxide, that is easy for amateurs to make at home but is highly unstable. The vests also included a battery, a detonation button and shrapnel to maximise injuries.
"They didn't bring these vests from Syria: the more you shake these things, the more you multiply the risks," he said. "It's very likely he is here, in France or Europe, one guy, or several guys."
Three specialists contacted by AFP agreed he was probably not among the attackers.
Concerns are high about another strike, with the UN global climate conference, Christmas and New Year celebrations and the Euro 2016 football championships all coming up.
"It's extremely worrying," said the retired intelligence chief who asked not to be named.
"This switch towards killing people, towards terrorism is, I think, a sign of their weakness. They've lost Sinjar. There was also the killing of Jihadi John. And I think that Isis is feeling that they need to regain the momentum, that they need to capture people's attention, and they see themselves as using terrorism in order to do that."
- Audrey Kurth Cronin, George Mason University
"Those Western government officials and academic 'experts' who were claiming that Isis was focused entirely on carrying out operations in territories in Iraq, Syria, or other Muslim countries ... have been wrong all along. All one has to do to understand the motives and goals of Islamist groups is to pay attention to what they themselves are openly and, indeed, proudly saying."
- Jeffrey Bale, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey
"One of the unfortunate consequences [of the Paris attacks] is that they are getting a lot of bang for their buck, so we imagine they will use the fallout to find more donors so they can finance future attacks."
Victor Asal, State University of New York-Albany has analysed the comparative behaviour of hundreds of extremist groups. Asal believes that the only option that France, the United States and their allies have is to try to wipe out Isis militarily. "The question is, Does the US have the wherewithal to do this until it's done?" Asal says. "If they don't, what you do is you tick people but you don't finish the job. And that's really bad."
