French interior minister says police raided 168 locations last night across the country.
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The Paris attacks were “prepared, organised and planned overseas, with help from inside (France)”, French President Francois Hollande said.
The Prime Minister said t he United Kingdom was engaged in a “generational struggle” against extremist terror.
The pre-dawn domestic operations come just hours after the French military carried out airstrikes in the ISIL-held Syrian city of Raqqa, where a dozen aircraft dropped 20 bombs on command and recruitment centres and an ammunition dump. The jets launched from sites in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, in coordination with US forces. An worldwide arrest warrant was issued in the fall of 2013 after he failed to comply with bail conditions. Belgian prosecutors said those claims are unconfirmed. Four were French, while the fifth man was fingerprinted in Greece in October and was possibly Syrian.
The attacks sent shockwaves around the world, with London’s Tower Bridge, Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and the World Trade Center in NY among the many landmarks lit up in the red, white and blue of the French national flag in a show of solidarity.
Tension was high in France and Belgium as police looked for a key suspect.
A Frenchman who thought to have hired another auto used in the attacks was stopped at the Belgian border yesterday morning, along with two other people, Mr Molins said. Hours had passed since investigators identified Abdeslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage-takers to the Paris theater where nearly three-quarters of the 129 victims were killed.
The developments have brought renewed focus on the threat posed by jihadist networks in Belgium, a country that, according to one analysis, has exported more jihadists to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq per capita than any other Western European nation.
His current whereabouts are unknown, but the IS magazine Dabiq suggested he had escaped to Syria earlier this year.
Extra security measures have been put in place around Britain, Mrs May said, with enhanced checks at ports and an increased police presence in cities.
At least three people believed linked to Friday’s Paris terror attacks were previously known to Belgian authorities, Belgian prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt told CNN on Tuesday.
Overall, the statement said, 10 of Paris’s public hospitals had cared for 415 victims from the attacks, and 218 patients had already been discharged.
In all, three teams of attackers including seven suicide bombers attacked the national stadium, the concert hall and nearby nightspots.
The suspected “mastermind” of the attacks has been identified as Belgian man Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Later in the day, police discovered that a Belgian-registered VW Polo found abandoned near the Bataclan, and identified as being used by the terrorists, had been rented by Abdeslam, and it was only then that they realised he had been within their grasp.
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.
Police have named just two French attackers – Ismael Omar Mostefai, 29, from Chartres, southwest of Paris, and Samy Amimour, 28, from the Paris suburb of Drancy. A judicial official and lawmaker Jean-Pierre Gorges confirmed his identity.
A third brother Mohamed Abdeslam was among seven people detained for questioning in Brussels.
More details have emerged about the IS attack which was the worst terrorist outrage in Europe for more than a decade, leaving at least 129 dead and 350 wounded. All three gunmen in the January attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket in Paris were French.
Paris remains on edge amid three days of official mourning.
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Panic ensued Sunday night as police abruptly cleared hundreds of mourners from the Place de la Republique square, where police said firecrackers sparked a false alarm. “The sirens and screaming are a source of fear”. “It’s a very weird atmosphere”.
