The third attacker who terrorized Paris’ Bataclan concert hall before being killed there has been identified as a Frenchman who left for Syria in 2013, two French officials said Wednesday, heightening fears of what increasingly appears to be an entirely homegrown European plot.
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So far, all attackers were French or Belgian and were native French speakers.
When questioned on their return, the remaining members claimed they had been horrified by what they had witnessed in Syria and had begun returning gradually to France from February 2014.
“I would have killed him beforehand”, he said in an interview with French media that aired on CNN affiliate BFMTV.
His journey did not quite go to plan, Le Monde says, as Mohamed-Aggad missed his flight in December 2013, leaving others waiting for him in Turkey.
If he’d found out, Said Mohamed-Aggad said he wouldn’t have let his son join the ranks of attackers who unleashed carnage at the Bataclan theater in Paris last month.
In all, 130 people died during the terror attacks in Paris November 13.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls confirmed “the name being circulated” was correct.
France’s Agence France Presse identified the 23-year-old man as Fouad Mohamed Aggad, from the French city of Strasbourg.
Eagles of Death Metal, the group that was playing at the Bataclan the night of the attacks, returned to the Bataclan for the first time yesterday, according to NBC News. The other two attackers have been identified as Frenchmen Omar Ismali Mostefai and Samy Amimour.
Police have now identified five of them.
It took investigators more time to identify the last Bataclan gunman.
Last month, Belgium issued an global arrest warrant for Abrini, who was filmed along with Abdeslam at a petrol station in Ressons, France, on the motorway to Paris, in a Renault Clio which was later used in the attacks.
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He was reportedly recruited by Mourad Fares, a man described by police as “particularly dangerous” for his role in recruiting French nationals for extremist groups including Daesh (Islamic State). The attacks are suspected to have been masterminded by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, killed in a police raid in Saint-Denis on November 18. “The family had not heard from him since August”, said Cotta. It was there, the newspaper says, that the group of 10, including Karim, plotted their journey to Syria. Two of the terrorists are believed to have used fake Syrian passports to travel back to France.
