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A series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks [13] [14] took place on Friday, 13 November 2015 [15] [16] in Paris, France, and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 21:16, three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, during an international football match, after failing to gain entry to the stadium.
- 21:16, 13 November 2015 –, 00:58, 14 November 2015 (CET)
- Paris and Saint-Denis, France
- Overview
- Prelude to the attacks
- The November 13 attacks
The Paris attacks of 2015 were coordinated terrorist attacks that took place in Paris, France, on the evening of November 13, 2015.
How many people died in the Paris attacks of 2015?
The Paris attacks of 2015 killed at least 130 people, and more than 350 were injured.
Who claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks of 2015?
On November 14, 2015, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks of 2015.
Paris attacks of 2015, coordinated terrorist attacks that took place in Paris on the evening of November 13, 2015. At least 130 people were killed and more than 350 were injured.
France was shaken on January 7, 2015, by a deadly assault on the offices of satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo. A pair of Islamist militants armed with assault rifles burst into the magazine’s Paris offices and murdered 11 people, including editor Stéphane (“Charb”) Charbonnier. Over the following 48 hours, six more people were killed in attacks in and around Paris. The actions of Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, the French Algerian brothers who had attacked Charlie Hebdo and killed a police officer as they made their escape, were claimed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Amedy Coulibaly—who had coordinated his actions with the Kouachi brothers but had pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS)—killed a police officer before murdering four hostages in a kosher grocery store in Paris. All three attackers were killed in gun battles with police.
The attacks led to a dramatic increase in domestic security spending, with French Pres. François Hollande pledging more than $850 million to fund counterterrorism efforts. There was also a spike in the number of reported Islamophobic incidents following the attacks, a worrying development given that France was home to western Europe’s largest Muslim community. The increased security measures did not prevent an attempted attack on a high-speed passenger train in northern France on August 21. Ayoub El-Khazzani, a militant with ties to ISIL, smuggled an AK-47, a semiautomatic pistol, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition onto the crowded Paris-bound train. A potential massacre was averted when El-Khazzani was subdued by passengers, among them a pair of off-duty U.S. military personnel who were traveling on holiday. In September French warplanes began striking ISIL targets inside Syria; France already had been targeting ISIL positions inside Iraq since September 2014.
The November 13 attacks on Paris and environs began at 9:20 pm, when a suicide bomber was foiled in his attempt to enter the Stade de France in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis. Inside the stadium, Hollande was among the 80,000 people watching an association football (soccer) match between the French and German national teams. When security officers at one of the stadium’s main entrances detected the attacker’s bomb belt, he detonated it, killing one passerby. The belt was an improvised device consisting of the highly unstable explosive compound triacetone triperoxide and shrapnel such as nails and ball bearings; identical devices would be employed by other attackers throughout the evening. Although the blast was audible to those inside the stadium, play on the field continued.
At 9:25 pm a team of gunmen launched a series of attacks on popular nightspots in Paris’s 10th and 11th arrondissements (municipal districts). The first location to be targeted was Le Carillon, a popular bar on the rue Alibert that had been a neighborhood fixture for some 40 years. After firing on patrons at Le Carillon with AK-47 assault rifles, the gunmen moved across rue Bichat to Le Petit Cambodge, a Cambodian restaurant. Although this attack took just minutes, it left 15 people dead and more than a dozen wounded. The gunmen were then observed leaving the scene in a black SEAT Leon hatchback.
Minutes later, at 9:30 pm, a second suicide bomber attacked the Stade de France, detonating his belt at another entrance but causing no casualties. Inside the game continued, but Hollande was evacuated from the stadium because it had by then become apparent that a terrorist attack was under way. The occupants of the black Leon crossed into the 11th arrondissement and opened fire on businesses along the rue de la Fontaine au Roi at 9:32 pm. Five people were killed and eight were wounded at the Italian restaurant La Casa Nostra, the Café Bonne Bière, and a laundromat. The gunmen then continued their deadly course, targeting La Belle Équipe, a popular eatery on the rue de Charonne at 9:36 pm. The restaurant’s terrace was packed with diners, and the gunmen fired into the crowd, killing 19 people as well as critically wounding 9 others. At the southeast end of the Boulevard Voltaire, just blocks southeast of La Belle Équipe, a suicide bomber detonated his belt outside the café Comptoir Voltaire at 9:40 pm, injuring one person.
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At the same time and at the other end of the Boulevard Voltaire, the deadliest attack of the evening was being carried out at the Bataclan, a historic theatre and concert hall. The American rock band Eagles of Death Metal was playing to a sold-out crowd at the 1,500-capacity venue when three attackers burst in and fired on the audience. Some of the concertgoers were able to escape through a side entrance, and dozens took refuge on the building’s roof, while others hid or feigned death in an effort to avoid the attention of the gunmen. Witnesses said that the attackers shouted “Allāhu akbar” (“God is greatest”) and indictments of Hollande for France’s military intervention in Syria as the massacre continued. The gunmen occupied the Bataclan for more than two hours, holding hostages and killing indiscriminately, before French security forces stormed the building at 12:20 am. Two of the attackers detonated their suicide belts, and the third attacker’s belt exploded spontaneously when it was hit with police bullets. Scores were seriously wounded in the attack, and at least 89 people were killed.
Dec 9, 2015 · 9 December 2015. EPA/EPA/Reu. The attacks in Paris on the night of Friday 13 November by gunmen and suicide bombers hit a concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars, almost simultaneously ...
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Dec 8, 2015 · November 18, 2015 - French authorities raid an apartment building in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. The apartment is a purported hideout of the suspected ringleader of the attacks.
Jun 29, 2022 · PARIS — Twenty men were convicted on Wednesday for their roles in the worst Islamist terrorist attack in French history, a coordinated spree of shootings and bombings in November 2015 that ...
Sep 7, 2021 · On the evening of Friday 13 November 2015, Theresa Cede - an Austrian mother of two living in Paris - had invited out her friend Stéphane to celebrate his 40th birthday.
Sep 8, 2021 · Three suicide bombers connected to the November 2015 Paris attacks strike at Brussel’s airport and a metro train, killing at least 32 people and wounding some 270 others in the worst attack in ...
