And now his name is known: The third man who unleashed carnage at the Bataclan theater in Paris last month has been identified as Foued Mohamed-Aggad — a 23-year-old from eastern France who traveled to Syria two years ago.
Mohamed-Aggad’s name was reported Wednesday by CNN affiliates BFMTV and France 2. He, like the other attackers, blew himself up.
The attack was launched as the American band Eagles of Death Metal played to an audience of about 1,500 people. Gunmen linked to ISIS stormed the theater with assault rifles, spraying gunfire and slaughtering people for 20 horrific minutes. Ninety people were killed.
A single white rose
A radio reporter attending the concert described the attackers as calm and determined, telling CNN they had reloaded three or four times.
President Barack Obama paid a midnight tribute to the victims last week, laying a single white rose at the Bataclan club.
Besides Mohamed-Aggad, the other attackers at the theater had also traveled to war zones in the Middle East. They were Samy Amimour, a 28-year-old from Paris who fought in Yemen, and Omar Ismail Mostefai, a 29-year-old from Courcouronnes, a Paris suburb, who traveled to Syria in 2013.
“We ask ourselves the question every day: What happened, why?” Amimour’s sister, Anna, told CNN’s Hala Gorani late last month. “He was in the same womb as me. We grew up together, so how did our paths end up so far apart?”
From Strasbourg to Syria
Mohamed-Aggad, the attacker who has just now been identified, was from a small town near Strasbourg, BFMTV and France 2 reported. He went to Syria in 2013, the stations said.
BFM also said Mohamed-Aggad was close to Mourad Fares, one of the main jihadist recruiters in France.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls confirmed that “the name being circulated” was correct.
Mohamed-Aggad was known to French anti-terrorism services and had a police record in Strasbourg, France 2 reported.
In all, the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13 killed 130 people and wounded more than 350.