Paris attacks suspect tells court he is ‘a soldier of Islamic State’

Published

4 years ago

September 8, 2021

admin

Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has told a court he is “a soldier of Islamic State”.

Abdeslam is among 20 men on trial accused of being involved in the 2015 atrocities at the Bataclan music theatre and other venues.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) terrorist attacks, which took place on 13 November 2015, killed 130 people and injured hundreds more.

Nine gunmen and suicide bombers struck within minutes of each other at France’s national football stadium, the Bataclan concert hall, and restaurants and cafes in the city.

Police secured the area near the courthouse, on the Ile de la Cite, during the arrival of a convoy believed to be carrying the defendants, and a heavy security presence remains in place.

The alleged lone survivor of the IS group, Abdeslam, is expected to be the key defendant in the trial and is the only one charged with murder.

The same IS network went on to strike Brussels months later, killing another 32 people.

Abdeslam, who abandoned his rental car in northern Paris and allegedly discarded a malfunctioning suicide vest before fleeing home to Brussels, has refused to speak to investigators.

He will be questioned several times throughout the trial, which is expected to last around nine months.

The 31-year-old arrived in court on Wednesday, dressed in black, and was seated behind a reinforced glass partition in the purpose-built courtroom.

He is thought to hold the answers to key questions about the attacks and the people who planned them, both in Europe and abroad.

Lawyers, journalists, victims and families who lost loved ones have packed out the court for the opening of the country’s biggest criminal trial in history.

France’s justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti has called for the trial to follow “centuries-old rules”, saying “the whole world is watching us” and the country must “live up to the logistic challenge”.

He added: “13 November 2015 plunged all of France in horror. There was a before and an after. These events, in effect, have become part of our history and of course, our collective memory.

“The justice system must not be lacking, concerning these events.”

Six of the 20 men accused will be tried in absentia, with five believed to have likely died in Syria.

The modern courtroom was constructed within the 13th-century Palais de Justice in Paris, where Marie Antoinette and Emile Zola faced trial, among others.

Throughout September, the trial is expected to focus on laying out police and forensic evidence before moving on to the testimonies from victims in October.

From November to December, officials including the former French president Francois Hollande are due to give evidence as will relatives of the attackers.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr Hollande said: “I will answer any questions about my decisions during that terrible night. I will answer any questions if they are asked, about what our intelligence was.

“What is the goal of the terrorists? Of course, to try to harm our way of life, and fight the war because we are waging one against them, but what they want the most is to divide us. That is why I am proud of the French because they didn’t divide after November 13th.”

Dominique Kielemoes, whose son bled to death at one of the cafes that night, said the month dedicated to victims’ testimonies at the trial will be crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation.

“The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people. But it wasn’t a mass – these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations, and that we need to talk about at the trial. It’s important,” she said.

France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin said there have been around 50 attacks since President Emmanuel Macron was elected in 2017, out of which 36 have been thwarted by intelligence services.

He added that the threat of terrorism in the country is “particularly high” and where there is “pressure in media and politics focusing on the trial of radical Islamism, clearly the threat is even higher”.

For the first time, victims have been given the option to listen to the trial from home using a secure audio link with a 30-minute delay.

The proceeding will not be televised but will be recorded for archival purposes – which has only been used in a handful of cases in the country that are considered to be of historical value.

World

Trump has ‘heated phone call’ with Netanyahu over strike targeting Hamas in Qatar

Published

6 hours ago

September 10, 2025

admin

Trump has 'heated phone call' with Netanyahu over strike targeting Hamas in Qatar

Donald Trump had a heated phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his military targeted Hamas inside Qatar, according to a report.

The American president told Mr Netanyahu on Tuesday that the decision to strike inside the US ally’s territory was not wise, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing senior administration officials.

The Israeli prime minister responded by saying he had a brief window to launch the airstrike and took the opportunity, according to the newspaper.

A second call between the two leaders later that day was cordial, with Mr Trump asking Mr Netanyahu if the attack had been successful, the publication added.

Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of the Islamist group Hamas with the attack in the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday.

Hamas has said its top leaders survived the airstrike, but five members were killed, including the son of its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator Khalil al Hayya.

The Israeli military operation in Doha has been widely condemned internationally and was particularly sensitive as Qatar has been hosting and mediating in negotiations which are trying to bring about a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu warned Qatar to either expel Hamas officials or “bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will”.

Qatar has hit back at him, saying his comments about the Gulf nation hosting a Hamas office were “reckless”.

Meanwhile, the Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, has said that if Israel failed to kill Hamas leaders on Tuesday, it would succeed next time.

“We have put terrorists on notice, wherever they may be… we’re going to pursue them, and we’re going to destroy those who will destroy us,” he said.

The airstrike took place shortly after Hamas claimed responsibility for Monday’s shooting at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem that killed six people.

In another development, Sir Keir Starmer has had talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Downing Street, with Mr Herzog saying they argued during a “tough meeting”.

PM condemns Israeli action

The prime minister has condemned the Israeli attack in Qatar, and raised the matter with the president, saying it was “completely unacceptable”.

“He said the strikes were a flagrant violation of a key partner’s sovereignty and do nothing to secure the peace we all desperately want to see,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Israel has been angered by Britain’s plans to join several other Western countries, including France and Canada, in recognising a Palestinian state later this month – unless Israel meets conditions including a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Things were said that were tough and strong, and clearly we can argue, because when allies meet, they can argue. We are both democracies,” Mr Herzog said at an event at Chatham House.

He also proposed offering a “fact-finding mission” to Israel, “sitting with us and studying the situation in Gaza on the humanitarian level”.

“Because we have full answers, and we are fully transparent,” he said.

World

Drones and salami: How Putin is testing the West with Poland airspace violation

Published

13 hours ago

September 10, 2025

admin

Drones and salami: How Putin is testing the West with Poland airspace violation

The unprecedented Russian drone attacks on Poland are both a test and a warning. How Europe and NATO respond could be crucial to security on this continent.

The Russians are past masters at what’s called “salami slicing”. Tactics that use a series of smaller actions to produce a much bigger outcome that otherwise would have been far more provocative.

The Kremlin is probing the West with gradual but steady escalation. A British Council building and an EU installation are bombed in Kyiv; a senior EU official’s plane’s GPS is jammed.

On their own each provocation produces nothing more than rhetoric from the West – but new lines are crossed and Russia is emboldened.

Ukraine war latest: NATO chief sends message to Putin

Putin is good at this.

He used salami slicing tactics masterfully in 2014 with his “little green men” invasion of Crimea, a range of ambiguous military and diplomatic tactics to take control. The West’s confused delay in responding sealed Crimea’s fate.

He has just taken a larger slice of salami with his drone attacks on Poland.

They are of course a test of NATO’s readiness to deploy its Article 5 obligations. Russia has attacked a member state, allies believe deliberately.

Will NATO trigger the all for one, one for all mechanism in Poland’s defence and attack Russia? Not very likely.

But failing to respond projects weakness. Putin will see the results of his test and plot the next one.

Expect lots of talk of sanctions but remember they failed to avert this invasion and have failed to persuade Russia to reverse it. The only sanctions likely to bite are the ones the US president refuses to approve, on Russia’s oil trade.

So how are the drones also a warning? Well, they pose a question.

Vladimir Putin is asking the West if it really wants to become more involved in this conflict with its own forces. Europeans are considering putting boots on the ground inside Ukraine after any potential ceasefire.

If this latest attack is awkward and complicated and hard to respond to now, what happens if Russia uses hybrid tactics then?

Deniable, ambiguous methods that the Russians excel in could make life very difficult for the alliance if it is embroiled in Ukraine.

Think twice before committing your troops there, Russia is warning the West.

There is more Europe could do.

It could stop buying Russian energy, which it is still astonishingly importing – more than 20 billion euros a year at the last count.

It could use its massive economic advantage (20 times that of Russia’s, and that was before the war) to do more to fund Ukraine’s defence.

While it continues to do neither, expect more excruciating slices of the salami to come.

World

Riot police clash with ‘Block Everything’ protesters in Paris

Published

18 hours ago

September 10, 2025

admin

Riot police clash with 'Block Everything' protesters in Paris

Riot police have clashed with protesters in Paris after they took to the streets in response to calls to ‘Block Everything’ over discontent with the French government.

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of the French capital and other cities, including Marseille and Montpellier, in response to the online ‘Bloquons Tout’ campaign, which is urging people to strike, block roads, and other public services.

The government has deployed more than 80,000 officers to respond to the unrest, which has seen 200 arrested nationwide so far, according to police, and comes on the same day the new prime minister is being sworn in.

Demonstrators were seen rolling bins into the middle of roads to stop cars, while police rushed to remove the makeshift blockades as quickly as possible.

Tear gas was used by police outside Paris‘s Gare du Nord train station, where around 1,000 gathered, clutching signs declaring Wednesday a public holiday.

Others in the city blocked the entrance to a high school where firefighters were forced to remove burnt objects from a barricade.

Elsewhere in the country, traffic disruptions were reported on major roads in Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, and Lyon.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told reporters a group of protesters had torched a bus in the Breton city of Rennes.

Fourth prime minister in a year

The ‘Block Everything’ rallies come amid spiralling national debt and are similar to the Yellow Vest movement that broke out over tax increases during President Emmanuel Macron’s first term.

‘Bloquons tout’ was first spearheaded online by right-wing groups in May but has since been embraced by the left and far left, experts say.

On Monday, former Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a vote of no confidence, and was replaced by Sebastien Lecornu at the Hotel Matignon on Wednesday afternoon, becoming the fourth person in the job in just 12 months.

A teacher, Christophe Lalande, taking part in the Paris protests, told reporters at the scene: “Bayrou was ousted, [now] his policies must be eliminated.”

Elsewhere, union member Amar Lagha said: “This day is a message to all the workers of this country: that there is no resignation, the fight continues, and a message to this government that we won’t back down, and if we have to die, we’ll die standing.”