Militants release video showing Paris attackers
If the identities of all the men in the video are confirmed, it would be the first evidence that the group that killed 130 people in coordinated attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 had been sent from the Islamic State’s base in Syria.
The video makes it clear that the Paris attacks were not just inspired by the Islamic State, but rather carried out by core members of the terrorist group, who had been trained and vetted in Syria before being tapped to carry out attacks on European soil.
Paris, it shows frantic televised scenes of soccer players and fans reacting to explosions at the Stade du France, and chaos on the streets near the Bataclan and other venues where the mass shootings took place.
In some of the most devastating terrorist attacks, including the 2005 London bombings, the assailants recorded statements that they were acting on behalf of al Qaeda.
A possible motivation for the new extended video is to avoid the confusion that followed the January 2015 terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, where the absence of such a video caused analysts to doubt if Said and Chérif Kouachi had been sent by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as they claimed.
At least one of the brothers is known to have traveled to Yemen to train with the terrorist group, and more than a year later, most experts agree that it played a role in the attack, though the extent of control and command remains a matter of debate.