Weapons found in getaway car, France names first attacker

Several Kalashnikov rifles have been found in an abandoned car believed to have been used by some of the Paris gunmen during Friday’s deadly attacks, French officials said.

The black Seat, which is believed to be have been the getaway vehicle used by terrorists and their accomplices on Friday, was found abandoned in the east Parisian suburb of Montreuil.

French newspaper Liberation reported that police found three AK47 rifles in the car, as well as five full magazines and 11 empty ones. The car has since been removed from the scene.

The discovery of the car appears to confirm the theory that some of the gunmen managed to flee from the scene after the attacks – and confirm ISIS’s claims that eight jihadis had carried out the series of attacks.

The BBC reported that the terrorists might have then driven north in another car to Belgium.

Police in Belgium – the European country with the highest proportion of citizens who have gone to fight for ISIS – have arrested several people over alleged links to the Paris attacks, including one who was in the French capital at the time of the attacks.

Justice minister Koen Geens said the arrests were made in connection with a grey Polo that had been rented in Belgium that was found near the Bataclan concert hall where three terrorists killed around 100 people.

Prosecutors said the bloodbath appeared to involve a multinational team with links to the Middle East, Belgium and possibly Germany as well as homegrown French roots. Three French nations were arrested in Belgium in connection with the attacks, Molins said.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said one of the vehicles used in Friday’s attacks was registered in Belgium and hired by a French national living there.

Earlier, police questioned on Sunday the relatives of one of the suicide attackers who brought carnage to Paris on Friday, with the Paris prosecutor saying three jihadist cells carried out co-ordinated hits at a bar, a concert hall and soccer stadium killing 129 people.

The seven attackers who staged the six assaults also injured 352, including 99 who were seriously wounded. Six of the attackers blew themselves up with suicide vests – the first-ever suicide bombings in France – and one was shot dead by police.

The first to be identified has been named in French media as Omar Ismail Mostefai, a 29-year-old Frenchman from the southern Paris suburb of Courcouronnes. French media said he was French-born and of Algerian descent.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the man had a security file for Islamic radicalisations and had a criminal record, but never spent time in jail or linked to terrorism. He was reportedly identified from police fingerprint records as one of the attackers at the Bataclan music venue, and had been flagged as an extremist as early as 2010. 

Mostefai’s father and brother and an unidentified woman have reportedly been taken into police custody, and their homes searched. Agence France-Press reports that six relatives of Mostefai have been detained.

A Syrian passport, belonging to a man born in 1990 who was not known to French authorities, had been found lying close by the bodies of two other jihadis. Greece’s citizen protection minister, Nikos Toskas, said earlier that the passport’s owner had entered the European Union through the Greek island of Leros on 3 October.

ISIS, who has since claimed responsibility for the attacks as a revenge for French military action in Syria and Iraq, said it dispatched eight jihadi – meaning that one may still be on the run.

It was also reported that at least one of the Paris gunmen had a ticket to the France- Germany football match at the Stade de France – only to found to be wearing a suicide vest when he was frisked trying to enter the ground 15 minutes into the match.

The attacked then detonated the vest while backing away from security. Three minutes later a second person blew himself up outside the stadium.

So far, victims have been identified as coming from Algeria, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Chile, France, Mexico, Morocco, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, and the United States.