Portugal’s Public Security Police command has boosted security at the Lisbon-based embassies of France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany, also raising the alert level at Lisbon, Oporto and Faro airports in the wake of the terrorist atrocities in Paris.
The number of operational security personnel has been increased to enable a strengthening of surveillance activities after 132 people died in the bombings and random machine-gun attacks in Paris on Friday night. Over 350 were injured and many remain in critical condition.
The Islamic State (ISIL) organisation has claimed credit for the attacks which were in revenge for France taking part in the bombing of Syrian targets.
Isil’s online statement said eight militants armed with explosive belts and automatic weapons attacked carefully chosen targets in the "capital of adultery and vice”. It reference to the football stadium where France was playing Germany, and the Bataclan concert hall, where an American rock band was playing, and "hundreds of apostates were attending an adulterous party”.
The statement read that France and its supporters would “remain at the top of the list of targets of the Islamic State”.
Eight terrorists died on Friday night. Seven blew themselves up by detonating explosives strapped to their bodies during attacks in different locations around the city, including a packed concert hall and the National Stadium where France was playing Germany in a football friendly.
At least one of the suspects who blew himself up at the Bataclan concert hall, was a 30-year-old Frenchman who was known to intelligence services and had been flagged as an extremist five years ago; 89 concert goers died in the Bataclan carnage.
Two Portuguese have been confirmed dead with a third also feared dead in the violence.
The first victim identified as Portuguese was Manuel Colaço Dias, 63, from Mértola who emigrated over 40 years ago and lived in the capital with his wife and two children.
The second confirmed victim is a 35-years old woman with dual French-Portuguese nationality. Her name has not yet been released. The third possible Portuguese victim is a woman but no further details have been released.
Portugal’s President Cavaco Silva has sent a message to François Hollande expressing his dismay over the “heinous terrorist attacks and the tragic loss of a large number of lives.”
The Portuguese community in France is the most numerous of the Portuguese communities in Europe with an estimated 580,000 Portuguese living in France.
Terrorist's mum is Portuguese
A severed finger led to the identity of one of the terrorists, named as Omar Ismaïl Mostefai whose father is Algerian and whose mother is Portuguese, according to the New York Times.
However, the Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities said today that, at the Consulate of Portugal in Paris and the Civil Registry, the terrorist Ismael Omar Mostefai is not registered as having a Portguese mother.
Acording to a New York Times report, 29-year-old Mostefai was one of five children and was born and raised in Courcouronnes, a suburb in the south of Paris.
Mostefai was one of the suicide bombers who went to the Bataclan concert venue with explosives strapped to his body and opened fire on the crowd before detonating the charges.
Mostefaï was known to police as being close to radical Islam but had not been linked to any terrorism inquiry, according to a statement from Paris prosecutor Francois Molins who added that Mostefai had been singled out as a high-priority target for radicalisation in 2010 but, before Friday, he had "never been implicated in an investigation or a terrorist association."
The Guardian said that Omar frequently attended a mosque in Chartres and that the French authorities already had him down as being at risk of radicalisation. The authorities now are investigating a possible trip that Omar made to Syria but his brother said he was unaware of any involvement with any extremist organisation.
The president of Mértola council mourned the death of Manuel Colaço Dias, one of its sons, in the Paris attacks with the council president considering the loss as a "sad moment."
Manuel Colaço Dias was a taxi driver who took his passengers to the Stade de France and was caught up in the attacks.
The Bishop of the Algarve today called for all Catholics in his region to pray for the victims of the Paris attacks
The Algarve prelate considered the attacks as being "unspeakable and unjustifiable in all respects, and had nothing but disrespect and contempt for the annihilation of the lives of so many defenceless citizens."
The victims
- 132 people were killed in the brutal attacks
- 89 perished during a hostage situation in the Bataclan during an Eagles of Death Metal concert
- Over 350 were injured, 99 critically
The attacks
- There were seven attacks by at least seven terrorists, it is thought
- All seven of the terrorists were wearing suicide vests
- The first attacks happened at 9.20pm, four miles apart
- The third attack happened at the Right Bank area of central Paris, where 15 people were gunned down and killed while they were eating and drinking in restaurants and bars.
- At the Casa Nostra pizzeria on Rue de la Fontaine au roi, at least five people were shot and killed.
- At least 19 people were killed at an attack in La Belle Equipe bar in Rue de Charonne after the bar was sprayed with bullets at around 9:35pm
- The sixth attack was at the Bataclan at around 9:50pm. The siege lasted two hours and forty minutes.
- Two of the terrorists blew up their explosive belts as police arrived on the scene at around 12:30am
- There was a third blast near the Stade de France
