Terror incidents that rocked France in 2015
New Delhi: A series of attacks targeting young concert-goers, soccer fans and Parisians enjoying a Friday night out at popular nightspots killed over 150 people in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War
New Delhi: A series of attacks targeting young concert-goers, soccer fans and Parisians enjoying a Friday night out at popular nightspots killed over 150 people in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II.
India TV brings to you the list of terror related incidents that rocked France in 2015:
January 7-9
On January 7 morning, two men armed with Kalashnikov rifles storm offices Charlie Hebdo, a weekly magazine known for satirical caricatures of Islam and other religions, in Paris. They killed 12 people including two police officers. They also killed a French National Police officer outside the office of the magazine.
The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, who took responsibility for the attack.
A gunman also had taken hostages at a Jewish supermarket, killing four.
The Charlie Hebdo attackers and the hostage-taker are killed in separate shootouts with police.
February 3
Three soldiers guarding a Jewish community centre in Nice on the French Riviera, were attacked by a knife-wielding man. The 30-year-old assailant, Moussa Coulibaly, from a Parisian suburb, was arrested. In custody, he expresses his hatred for France, the police, the military and Jews.
In March, counter-terrorism officials had alerted the government about possible jihadist attacks in France.
April 19
Sid Ahmed Ghlam, an Algerian IT student, was arrested in Paris. He was arrested on suspicion of killing a woman who was found shot dead in the passenger seat of her car. Officials also said that he was planning an attack on a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif.
Prosecutors claim that they found documents about Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State at his home, and that he had been in touch with a suspected jihadist in Syria about an attack on a church.
June 26
Yassin Salhi, 35, killed and beheaded his boss Herve Cornara and displayed the severed head on the fence of a gas plant surrounded by Islamic flags.
He also tried to blow up the factory at Saint-Quentin-Fallavier in southeast France, but was arrested.
Described as a 'soldier of the caliphate,' Salhi sent the selfie to a French ISIS terrorist in Syira.
Salhi had told officers that he is a member of the Islamic State terror group.
July 13
French officials successfully foiled a terrorist plot when they arrested four young men aged 16 to 23, including a former soldier. All 4 were arrested on charges of planning an attack on a military camp to behead an officer in the name of jihad.
August 21
Two off-duty US servicemen and a friend prevent a bloodbath on a high-speed Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris.
They tackled a man who opened fire on passengers. He was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an automatic pistol, and a box-cutter.
French authorities said that their actions almost certainly avoided a bloodbath. They treated this as a suspected act of terrorism.
November 10
French authorities arrested a man with links to an Islamic State jihadist in Syria over a plot to attack military personnel at a major naval base. The 25-year-old, whom sources said had been monitored by intelligence agencies after trying unsuccessfully twice last year to travel to Syria, was held late last month and charged on November 2.
Monitored by intelligence agencies for a months, he had tried to obtain material for carrying out the attack in Toulon in the southeast of the country.