PARIS: French police have identified the first attacker out of the three teams of gunmen who carried out the worst ever attacks ever visited on Paris, which killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more.

The self-styled Islamic State (IS) group has claimed the carnage carried at some of the French capital's most popular night-spots, including a sold-out concert hall, at restaurants and bars and outside France's national stadium.

The seven attackers ─ six blew themselves up and one was shot by police ─ are the first to ever carry out suicide bombings on French soil and, unlike those who killed 17 in Paris in January, were unknown to security services.

Investigators in France, Belgium, Greece and Germany are now trying to find out who these men were, how they carried out such a vast coordinated attack, and why.

Read: Bloodied France vows ‘merciless’ response to IS ‘act of war’

France

Police have identified one of the gunmen who blew himself up at the Bataclan concert hall, the scene of the bloodiest attack where 89 people were killed, as 29-year-old Paris native Omar Ismail Mostefai.

Six people close to Mostefai have been detained, including his father, brother and sister-in-law, judicial and police sources said.

A source close to the probe said investigators are now searching the homes of other friends and relatives of the killer.

Mostefai, whose identity was confirmed using a severed fingertip, was known as being close to radical Islam, but had never been linked to terrorism.

A black Seat car used by gunmen who fired at people in restaurants during the attacks has also been found in the eastern suburb of Montreuil, police said Sunday.

Another official, however, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not publicly authorised to speak, could not immediately confirm if this was the same black Seat linked to the gun attacks on the Le Carillon bar and the Le Petit Cambodge restaurant in Rue Alibert in the city's 10th district.

Police said the attackers appeared to be "seasoned, at first sight, and well trained" and were investigating whether they had ever been to fight in Syria, where IS has proclaimed a caliphate along with territory in neighbouring Iraq.

The Paris attacks were "prepared, organised and planned overseas, with help from inside (France)", French President Francois Hollande said.

Also read: Paris attacks: The possible consequences

Belgium

Belgian police have arrested several people over links to the Paris attacks in a huge sweep, including one who was in the French capital at the time of the attacks.

Justice Minister Koen Geens said the arrests were in connection with a grey Polo that had been rented in Belgium that was found near the Bataclan concert hall.

The arrests ─ local media said three people had been detained ─ took place in the poor Brussels district of Molenbeek that has been linked to several other terror plots in Europe.

Police in Belgium, which has the highest number of citizens per-capita who have gone to fight for IS in Europe, have opened a formal terrorism investigation.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins separately said one of the vehicles used in Friday's attacks was registered in Belgium and hired by a French national living there.

Witnesses in Paris said some attackers arrived in a car with Belgian plates.

Also read: Paris attacks: A timeline of killings

Greece

Greek authorities have confirmed that a man who died in the attacks with a Syrian passport found next to him had registered as a refugee on the of island of Leros in October.

French police said the passport was found "near the body of one of the attackers" after the Bataclan carnage, and had also asked Greece to check on the fingerprints of another man.

Earlier information from a Greek police source that he too had registered on Leros was later refuted.

The passport is still being checked, but it indicates the attackers may have had links to Syria and could have been among the thousands of people that have fled the country's civil war for Europe.

Germany

German police arrested a man on November 5 after machine-guns, hand guns and explosives were found in his vehicle during a routine check on a motorway.

Bavaria's state premier Horst Seehofer said there was reason to believe he had links to the attackers, and that the case "shows how important it is for us to have some clarity on who is in our country".

But Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere rejected the link, and made an "urgent plea to avoid drawing such swift links to the situation surrounding refugees".

Know more: Europe’s populist right targets migration after carnage

A timeline of killings

Here is a timeline of the deadly attacks and their aftermath.

• 1:20am on Saturday (Pakistan time): Simultaneous shootings and explosions take place across Paris.

• Three explosions take place near the Stade de France football stadium during a friendly match between France and Germany attended by 80,000 spectators, including French President Francois Hollande.

• In the city’s 10th district 12 people are killed on the terrace of the restaurant Le Petit Cambodge.

• On rue de Charonne, in the 11th district, 18 people are killed in gunfire which witnesses say lasted “two, three minutes”.

• At the Bataclan concert hall, where US group ‘Eagles of Death Metal’ is performing, several armed men fire on the audience and take hostages.

• In the 11th district near Place de la Republique, five people are killed on the terrace of a pizzeria, La Casa Nostra.

• An attack in which one is killed also takes place on the other side of Place de la Republique. A suicide bomber is killed.

• 2:30am: French President Francois Hollande, evacuated from the Stade de France, goes to the interior ministry to monitor the situation.

• The police say that at least 18 have been killed.

• Several metro stations are closed by the police.

• 3:50am: Paris hospitals go into emergency mode.

• 4:01am: Hollande declares a state of emergency.

• 4:30am: Police storm the Bataclan, ending their operation 30 minutes later. At least 82 people are killed in the concert hall attack. The four attackers are killed. Three die after activating their suicide vests and the fourth is shot dead.

• Hollande visits the Bataclan, where he vows to lead a “merciless” fight against terrorists.

• France deploys an additional 1,500 soldiers to Paris.

• The presidency says that border controls will be reinstated but the borders will remain open.

• Death toll is updated to at least 120.

• 12:30pm: According to investigators, eight attackers were killed, of whom seven blew themselves up.

• Schools, markets, museums and major tourist sites in the Paris area are closed and sporting fixtures cancelled.

• 2:50pm: Hollande calls the attacks “an act of war... committed by a terrorist army [the self-styled Islamic State (IS), also known by its Arabic acronym ‘Daesh’] against France, against... what we are, a free country”. He declares three days of mourning.

• The IS claims responsibility for the attacks.