The main suspect in coordinating the Paris terror attacks was killed in Wednesday’s raid on an apartment in Saint-Denis, the city’s chief prosecutor said Thursday.
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The bodies recovered in the raid were badly mangled, with a part of the woman’s spine landing on a police vehicle, complicating formal identification.
That situation changed profoundly on Monday, when France received a tip from a non-European country that Abaaoud had slipped into Europe through Greece, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said. The interview led security officials to believe Abaaoud was in Syria.
Two police officials briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press that a cellphone dumped in a trash can outside the Bataclan concert hall – where 89 people were killed – proved crucial. He did not say there was a specific threat of such an attack.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he welcomed the death of “one of the masterminds” of the attacks.
Several people were also arrested during the raid.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel announced $427 million of anti-terror measures Thursday following the attacks.
They could have caused a bloodbath and serious panic, intensifying the chaos as police rushed to several attacks around Paris, but only one person was killed. He added, “We know that there could also be a risk of chemical or biological weapons”.
Speaking at the European Parliament on Thursday, Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, said the attacks were “a clear statement of intent by ISIS to export its brutal brand of terrorism to Europe”.
The State Department issued a warning Wednesday that St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Milan’s cathedral and La Scala opera house, as well as churches, synagogues, restaurants, theaters and hotels had been identified as “potential targets”. “That is the message which we which to transmit – that life goes on”, Mr Pinville said. An official in the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said the raids targeted people in Hadfi’s “entourage”.
A Belgian national now in Syria and believed to be one of Islamic State’s most active operators is suspected of being behind Friday’s attacks in Paris, acccording to a source close to the French investigation.
Fabius, speaking on France-Inter radio, said the group “is a monster. But if all the countries in the world aren’t capable of fighting against 30,000 (ISIL members), it’s incomprehensible”. Two people were killed in the raid, but it took French investigators until Thursday morning to confirm the identity of the suspected planner, a Belgian citizen with long-known affiliation to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
A number of police officials have now also confirmed that a woman killed during the in Saint-Dernis was the cousin of alleged mastermind Abaaoud. Next week, French President Francois Hollande is going to Washington and Moscow to push for a stronger global coalition against IS.
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Abaaoud is believed to have gotten to know a few of the attackers responsible for the Paris massacre in the Moleenbeek neighborhood of Brussels where he grew up, including Brahim Abdeslam who blew himself up outside a cafe in one of Paris’ trendiest neighborhoods. Two of the nine have been charged with terrorist murder and belonging to a terrorist group, the official said.
