Salah Abdeslam says attacks ‘nothing personal’ and François Hollande ‘knew risks’ of targeting IS
The sole survivor of the jihadist cell alleged to have killed 130 people in Paris six years ago has told his trial the attacks were revenge for French airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, and that France had known “the risks” of attacking Islamic State.
“We fought France, we attacked France, we targeted the civilian population – but it was nothing personal against them,” Salah Abdeslam said of the coordinated gun and suicide bomb attacks across Paris on 13 November 2015, which began at the national football stadium, continued at bars and restaurants and ended with a massacre inside a rock gig at the Bataclan concert hall.