Gen. Vladimir Kolokoltsevs said in a statement late on Friday that along with his condolences over the deadly attacks he will send to his French counterpart a puppy so that it “could replace Diesel”. Officials said the operation focused on Hadfi’s family, friends and others linked to him.
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In the coordinated attacks, seven locations across Paris were targeted, including a Cambodian restaurant and a bar.
Abaaoud grew up in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, which has emerged as a key focus of investigations into the Paris atrocity.
France’s national police chief says that the whereabouts of a key fugitive in last week’s Paris attacks is unclear. He had bragged in the Islamic State group’s English-language magazine that he was able to slip in and out of Europe undetected.
French police believe Mostefai traveled to Syria in the past few years, although it’s not clear what he did there.
He was charged with terror offences in 2012 over an attempted trip to Yemen and terror network links, but disappeared the following year.
Islamic State, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria, has attracted thousands of young Europeans and Abaaoud was seen as a leading figure in luring others, particularly from Belgium. “He was with another guy, who never left us alone”, the father said.
Belgium has filed terror charges against a third suspect relating to last week’s Paris attacks. His brother Brahim was one of the Paris suicide bombers. The document describes Al-Mohammad as a 25-year-old from the rebel-held Syrian city Idlib.
The officials said “it is reasonable to think that someone setting off from the Middle East (for Europe) would go through Greece or Italy”.
As it turned out, not only was Abaaoud in Europe, but right under the noses of French investigators, a 15-minute walk from the Stade de France stadium where three suicide bombers blew themselves up during the November 13 attacks that also wounded hundreds.
Who was the third person killed in Wednesday’s raid?
Salah Abdeslam, 26, is the subject of an worldwide search warrant.
She had lived a secular life, drinking alcohol and rarely visiting a mosque. She was Abaaoud’s cousin.
Her name was Hasna Aitboulahcen.
Aitboulahcen, 26, is said to have been radicalised just a matter of months ago.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Abaaoud was traced to the apartment in Saint-Denis through phone taps and surveillance.
One of the dead has been confirmed as Islamist militant Abaaoud.
The private Dogan news agency identified the Belgian as Ahmet Dahmani and said he is suspected of having explored areas in Paris that were attacked last week.
She retorted angrily, “He’s not my boyfriend”, and triggered her vest, becoming the first female suicide bomber to strike Western Europe.
As an increasingly detailed picture emerges of a network of European-born jihadists with ties to Syria, investigators are working around the clock to find Salah Abdeslam, an eighth gunman who is still on the run. Authorities identified him as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage-takers to the Paris theater.
It says the killers’ attack on “culture and freedom” should unite people of all races, faiths and backgrounds.
The Abdeslam brothers booked a hotel in the southeastern Paris suburb of Alfortville and rented a house in the northeastern suburb of Bobigny several days before the attacks.
The French authorities missed an opportunity to detain him and two other men near the Belgian border hours after the attacks.
The count does not include any of the attackers who died.
Mohamed Abdeslam said on RTL radio Wednesday that he shares the pain of victims’ families and wishes he and his family could have done something to prevent the bloodshed across Paris Nov. 13. “We never had any problem with justice”, he said.
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Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said this week that three cars, the Seat, a Polo and a Renault Clio, arrived in convoy from Belgium on the eve of the attacks.
