Today In History: Paris 2015 Attacks

By Idy Perl

On this day, November 13, in 2015, Islamic terrorists set off a series of deadly attacks in Paris. 

Three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France stadium during an international football match, while another group of terrorists detonated an explosion and fired into crowded cafes and restaurants, and a third group carried out a mass shooting and took hostages from a concert. 

In total the terrorists killed 130 people and another 416 were injured, making it the deadliest attack in the European Union since the Madrid train bombings of 2004. 

France had been on high alert that year since multiple attacks had been taking place in France throughout 2015. In January of that year Al Qaeda operatives shot up a newspaper office, stabbed soldiers guarding a shul, and attacked a Jewish supermarket in Paris. 

The November 13th attacks came just 1 day after similar attacks in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took responsibility for the attacks in both Beirut and Paris and claimed that it was in retaliation for French airstrikes on Islamic targets in Syria and Iraq. 

photo: Shutterstock