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Paris attacks: France fights back with airstrikes against Isis in Syria – live Paris attacks: France responds with airstrikes against Isis in Syria – live
(35 minutes later)
11.48pm GMT23:48
Why the attack on Raqqa now?
The city is the de facto capital of Islamic State within Syria.
Various reports quote senior Iraqi officials saying that France and other countries had been warned on Thursday of an imminent attack.
Associated Press reports that an Iraqi intelligence dispatch had warned that Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had ordered his followers to immediately launch gun and bomb attacks and take hostages inside the countries of the coalition fighting them in Iraq and Syria.
An important caveat: the Iraqi dispatch, which was obtained by the AP, provided no details on when or where the attack would take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets these kinds of warnings “all the time” and “every day”.
However, Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP that they also warned France about specific details: among them, that the attackers were trained for this operation and sent back to France from Raqqa.
The officials also told AP that a sleeper cell in France met with 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.
None of these details have been corroborated by officials of France or other Western intelligence agencies. The Guardian is still working to verify them.
11.42pm GMT23:42
'Nothing stood out' about Paris attacker Omar Ismail Mostefai
Angelique Chrisafis
The Guardian’s Angelique Chrisafis has visited Courcouronnes and Chartres, both previously home to Omar Ismail Mostefai, the first of the attackers to be identified, and sends this dispatch:
The beige, two-storey, housing association house in a quiet cul-de-sac in the French cathedral city of Chartres was as unremarkable as Omar Ismail Mostefai himself had seemed to neighbours when he lived there for several years until 2012.
“His wife didn’t work and they had a very young daughter, nothing stood out,” said the couple who lived opposite. “He was 25 at the time. He always wore trainers and a cap, he was tall, he had long hair and a short beard and didn’t dress in a religious way.
“He didn’t work regularly, he had temporary jobs. There didn’t seem to be anything odd. He didn’t have visits,” the woman said.
Three years after his neighbours last saw him, Mostefai, 29, was one of three unmasked men who pulled up in a black Polo car in Paris on Friday night, and entered a rock gig at the Bataclan concert hall before opening fire on the crowd with Kalashnikovs.
Terrified survivors spoke of utter “carnage”, in which the men shot at random and, when people threw themselves to the ground, turned their automatic weapons on them and kept firing. At least 89 people died there in the bloodiest of the coordinated attacks.
Read the profile of Moustafai in full:
Related: 'Nothing stood out' about Paris attacker Omar Ismail Mostefai
11.31pm GMT23:31
Ian Black
The Isis attacks in Paris have galvanised international efforts to end the war in Syria, with a new deadline set for negotiations between the warring parties and for a country-wide ceasefire, reports the Guardian’s Middle East editor, Ian Black.
There is still no sign of agreement, however, on the key question of the future of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
Assad blamed the Paris atrocities on what he called France’s mistaken policies when he met French MPs in Damascus on Saturday.
“The question that is being asked throughout France today is, was France’s policy over the past five years the right one?” he said. “The answer is no.”
France has made clear it will continue to attack Isis and call for Assad’s departure.
Syrian opposition forces fear western countries will come to accept Assad’s argument that they should cooperate with him to fight the jihadis as the lesser evil. Assad’s position is that all those who have fought his government are terrorists.
Russia and Iran, his staunchest allies, share his view, but Saudi Arabia, a key backer of Islamist rebels – though not of Isis – disagrees.
Read the full analysis here:
Related: Paris attacks galvanise international efforts to end Syria war
11.21pm GMT23:21
We are getting more details of the strikes in Raqqa, which were undertaken by French air forces in conjunction with the US.
The operation struck a command centre, a recruitment centre for jihadists, a munitions depot, and a training camp for fighters, the French defence ministry said in a statement.
The sites targeted had previously been identified on earlier reconnaissance flights, it said.
A defence official was quoted by Associated Press as saying the strikes were “massive” and had destroyed two jihadi sites in Raqqa.
The ministry statement added:
The first target destroyed was used by Daesh [Isis] as a command post, jihadist recruitment centre and arms and munitions depot. The second held a terrorist training camp.
11.13pm GMT23:1311.13pm GMT23:13
Opening summaryOpening summary
Claire PhippsClaire Phipps
Welcome to our continuing coverage of the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, as France launches its response to the Islamic State assault on its capital.Welcome to our continuing coverage of the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, as France launches its response to the Islamic State assault on its capital.
Here are the latest developments:Here are the latest developments: