ABDELHAMID ABAAOUD, named by French investigators as the commander who organised Friday’s terror strikes in Paris, spoke in February of his success in penetrating European border defences and obtaining weapons for a terrorist strike.
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Seven people had been arrested in relation to the Paris attacks in raids in Molenbeek, Thoreau said Sunday.
The Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. In France, where a state of emergency is in effect, police carried out raids around the country overnight into Monday.
Tracing back the Paris operatives to whoever organised them will be crucial in order to understand what else might be planned. A few of the suspects have been linked to the bloody civil war raging in Syria that has enabled ISIS to thrive.
France’s Police Nationale issued a nationwide alert Sunday for Abdeslam Salam, a 26-year-old man from Brussels, who they said was “likely to be involved” in the Paris attacks.
British security services are reportedly working with counterparts in France and Belgium to identify and pursue those behind the massacre and security. By then, hours had passed since authorities identified Abdeslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that had carried hostage-takers to the Paris theatre where so many were killed.
Brahim Abdeslam was one of the suicide attackers in Paris, and his brother Salah is being hunted by police.
Prosecutors say they believe three groups of attackers were involved in the Paris carnage, raising the possibility that one group may still be at large. Now, his whereabouts are unknown. After an attack that killed two policemen in January, he told the ISIS magazine that he was able to escape capture and slip into Syria. When Belgian police stopped the auto later Saturday, Abdeslam was no longer in it.
One of the brothers is on the run, one is in custody in Belgium – though it is unclear whether he took part in the rampage – while the third blew himself up outside a cafe on the bustling Boulevard Voltaire, sources said.
French authorities have identified several suspected attackers, most with links to France or Belgium.
Le Parisien newspaper has quoted a spectator as saying one of the stadium attackers was a woman. Islamic State said there were eight attackers.
Two houses in the suburb were also raided after Ayoub El Khazzani, a Moroccan national, opened fire with a Kalashnikov rifle on a high-speed train from Paris to Amsterdam in August.
The jihadi, from Drancy in northeast Paris, had been charged in a terrorism probe in 2012 – but later dropped off the radar. French, resident of Belgium.
Hadfi appears to have traveled to Syria in the spring of 2015, van Vlierden said, citing analysis of his social media postings and other communications.
Officials did find a Syrian passport near the body of a terrorist at the Stade de France.
Blic claims Almuhamed arrived in Europe with another of the bombers, on the Greek island of Leros on October 3 on his way to Paris.
This comes after Poland announced it was pulling out of the EU’s plan to resettle Syrian refugees across Europe, after unconfirmed speculation that one of the terrorists might have crossed into Europe with other refugees.
The president of La Mosquée Anoussra de Chartres, Ben Bammou, 35, said: “He would pray at the mosque once every three days or so when he would attend worship with his father who we knew as Mostafa”. She said telephone records confirmed his presence there.
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Criminologist Alain Bauer, a former security adviser to French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, said the increasingly coordinated character of much European criminal activity was not always matched by the work of police authorities.
