Paris shootings - Many dead in multiple attacks

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Paris attacks that killed 129

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3317776/Paris-attack-sees-150-dead-Eagles-Death-Metal-concert-hostages-killed.html

 

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Paris attacks: Islamic State claims responsibility

Date November 15, 2015 - 5:50AM

Islamic State release an undated video on Saturday urging Muslims who are unable to travel to Syria to wage holy war to carry out attacks in France, a day after gunmen and bombers killed at least 120 people in Paris.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility on Saturday for attacks that killed 127 people in Paris.

In an official statement the group claimed responsibility for the attacks and said its fighters, strapped with suicide bombing belts and carrying machine guns, carried out the attacks in various locations in the heart of the capital which were carefully studied.

French police officers patrol the platforms at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris, France on Saturday. Photo: Bloomberg

It said "eight brothers wearing explosive belts and carrying assault rifles" conducted a "blessed attack on ... Crusader France".

The statement, published on Saturday in both Arabic and French, threatened further attacks against France "as long as it continues its Crusader campaign".

It said the targets of Friday's attacks, which included the national sports stadium and the Bataclan concert hall, "were carefully chosen".

A woman is evacuated from the Bataclan theatre in Paris on Friday night. Photo: AP

It said France was guilty of "striking Muslims in the caliphate with their aircraft."

French President Francois Hollande said on Saturday the attacks in Paris that killed 127 people were "an act of war" organised from abroad by Islamic State with internal help.

"Faced with war, the country must take appropriate action," he said, without saying what that meant.

Paris is in lockdown after multiple shootings across the city and two suicide bombs detonated close to Stade De France Stadium which was hosting an international soccer match. Photo: Reuters

Hollande said he would address parliament on Monday in an extraordinary meeting and the country would observe three days of official mourning for the victims of Friday's attacks.

The attacks at a stadium, concert hall and cafes and restaurants in northern and eastern Paris were "an act of war committed by Daesh that was prepared, organised and planned from outside (of France)" with help from inside France, Hollande said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

"All measures to protect our compatriots and our territory are being taken within the framework of the state of emergency," he said.

State of emergency: Francois Hollande declares the closing of France's borders. Photo: AP

Islamic State released an undated video on Saturday urging Muslims to attack France.

The coordinated assault on Friday evening came as France, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks ahead of a global climate conference due to open later this month.

The deadliest attack was on the Bataclan, a popular concert venue where the Californian rock group Eagles of Death Metal was performing. The concert hall is just a few hundred metres from the former offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, target of a deadly attack by Islamist gunmen in January.

Some witnesses in the hall said they heard the gunmen shout Islamic chants and slogans condemning France's role in Syria.

Reuters

 

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Hundreds flee in panicked stampede as police evacuate over fears of new Paris attacks

Yahoo and Agencies
November 16, 2015, 5:38 am

Scores of people have fled multiple areas in central Paris after panic erupted over what police have since confirmed was a false alarm.

Panicked scenes were triggered at Place de la Republique and Le Carillon hotel when police yelled "Alert, alert!", evacuating the areas.

With the city already on edge, mourners at the impromptu gatherings were sent running while others took cover after a loud bang was heard on Sunday evening. Police and military personnel drew their weapons and took up defensive positions around the streets in response.

 

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Global arrest warrant for brother tied to Paris attacks

AFP
November 16, 2015, 6:00 am

Paris (AFP) - Belgium issued an international arrest warrant Sunday for one of three brothers linked to the brutal attacks in Paris that killed 129 people, as the probe spread across Europe.

As thousands gathered in central Paris in mourning and solidarity, authorities in at least five European countries scrambled to tie together leads and hunt down possible accomplices.

Security sources said one of the three brothers died in the Bataclan concert hall where the worst of the bloodshed took place, while another had been detained along with six other people in Belgium.

Seven gunmen wearing suicide belts died during the attacks, which have been claimed by the Islamic State group -- either at the Stade de France stadium, or in and around the Bataclan venue.

The sports minister said at least one of the bombers who detonated their explosives near the stadium had tried to enter the venue where France were playing Germany in an international football match at the time.

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.

It is now known that three of the suicide bombers were French nationals, but two of the men had lived in the Belgian capital Brussels.

Two cars used in the attacks were hired in Belgium. One was quickly found near the Bataclan venue, and one overnight on Saturday in the suburb of Montreuil east of Paris, with two AK47 rifles inside.

Witnesses said the second car, a black Seat, was used by gunmen who shot dozens of people in bars and restaurants in the hip Canal St Martin area of Paris.

- Attacker identified -

The first attacker to be named by investigators is Omar Ismail Mostefai, a 29-year-old father and French citizen, who was identified from a severed finger among the carnage at the Bataclan, where 89 people were killed after heavily armed men in wearing explosives vests stormed into the venue.

Police detained six people close to Mostefai, including his father, brother and sister-in-law, judicial sources said.

Born in the modest Paris suburb of Courcouronnes, he had eight convictions for petty crimes but had never served a prison sentence.

"It's a crazy thing, it's madness. Yesterday I was in Paris and I saw what a mess this was," one of his brothers told AFP before he was taken into custody on Saturday night.

Belgian prosecutors said two of the attackers were Frenchmen who had lived in Brussels, at least one in the neighbourhood of Molenbeek which has been linked to Islamic radicalism.

Premier Charles Michel conceded Molenbeek, a poor immigrant neighbourhood known as a hotbed of radicalisation, was a "gigantic problem".

Meanwhile, German authorities were questioning a man from Montenegro found last week with a car-load of eight Kalashnikov rifles, three pistols and explosives.

The man, who had been heading for Paris, has refused to cooperate with police.

The discovery of a Syrian passport near the body of one attacker has raised fears that some of the assailants might have entered Europe as part of the huge influx of people fleeing Syria's civil war.

Greek and Serbian authorities have confirmed the passport belonged to a man who registered as a refugee in October on the island of Leros and applied for asylum in Serbia a few days later.

But European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has urged EU countries to take in refugees, said there was no need for a complete review of the bloc's policies.

"Those who organised, who perpetrated the attacks are the very same people who the refugees are fleeing and not the opposite," he said.

- Paris in mourning -

Paris was plunged into three days of mourning as residents struggled to come to terms with the latest shock, 10 months after jihadists hit satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket.

Although much of the city was shut and the government had banned public demonstrations on security grounds, thousands flocked to lay flowers and lit candles at the sites of the violence.

By early evening, the Place de la Republique square was full of people standing in quiet solidarity while many more joined a solemn memorial at Notre Dame cathedral.

Meanwhile, outside the Bataclan venue, 38-year-old Herve came to pay his respects with his six-year-old son.

"We need to get out, you shouldn't stay at home," he told AFP. "You need to go out and look, get a feel for yourself of what happened."

The Islamic State group said they carried out the attacks that left a trail of destruction.

The group said they were acting in revenge for French air strikes in Syria and threatened further violence in France "as long as it continues its Crusader campaign".

President Francois Hollande has called the assault an "act of war" and vowed to hit back "without mercy".

Forensic teams were still scouring the Bataclan venue, where three attackers burst in shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) and sprayed gunfire during a gig by Californian band Eagles of Death Metal.

They are believed to have executed hostages one by one after rounding them up near the stage. Videos have shown terrified people scrambling out of a door and hanging out of windows to escape the violence.

As armed police stormed the venue, two gunmen blew themselves up, while the third was shot by police.

World leaders united Sunday to denounce terrorism at a heavily-guarded G20 summit in Turkey and observed a minute's silence in respect of those who were killed.

"We stand in solidarity with France in hunting down the perpetrators of this crime and bringing them to justice," US President Barack Obama said after talks with his host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Russia's Vladimir Putin said overcoming global terror was possible only "if all the international community unites its efforts".

 

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Foreign victims of Paris bloodbath

AFP
November 16, 2015, 6:28 am

Paris (AFP) - Several foreigners have been identified among the victims of Friday's attacks in Paris, which left at least 129 dead and more than 350 injured.

The following is a breakdown of foreign fatalities:

- ALGERIA: Kheir-Eddine Sahbi, an Algerian man aged 29, was killed, the foreign ministry said.

- BELGIUM: At least three Belgians including a dual French national were killed, according to the Belgian foreign ministry. Press reports said they included Elif Dogan, 26, and Milko Jozic, 47, who had been living in Paris for four months. The third victim was reported to be 28 and also had French nationality.

- BRITAIN: Nick Alexander, 36, was killed at the Bataclan concert hall, his family said. Alexander sold merchandise for bands, including Eagles of Death Metal, who were playing at the time of the attack.

The Foreign Office said a "handful" of other Britons were feared dead.

- CHILE: Three Chileans were killed in the attacks: Patricia San Martin, 55, the niece of Chile's ambassador to Mexico and her daughter Elsa Delplace as well as Luis Felipe Zschoche Valle, a musician, according to Chile's foreign ministry.

- GERMANY: German authorities said a 28-year-old born in Munich and resident in the region of Bavaria was killed.

- ITALY: Valeria Solesin, 28, from Venice, was killed outside the Bataclan concert hall, her family said.

- MEXICO: Two people holding dual Mexican nationality were killed, the foreign ministry said. One was Michelle Gil Jaimes, also a Spanish national, the governor of her home state in eastern Mexico said.

The other was dual US citizen Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, a student at California State University.

- MOROCCO: One Moroccan was killed and another injured, according to the embassy in France.

- PORTUGAL: Two Portuguese nationals are reported to have died, according to the government. One of them, Manuel Dias, 63, was a driver and had just dropped off three passengers near the Stade de France, where he was killed.

The other, Precilia Correia, 35, worked at the French store selling electronic and cultural products FNAC in Paris and was killed at the Bataclan, where she had gone with her French boyfriend, who also killed. Born in France to a Portuguese father and French mother, she had dual nationality.

- ROMANIA: Two Romanians were killed, according to the foreign ministry, which only gave their first names: Ciprian, 32, and Lacramioara, 29. They were celebrating a birthday party at the Belle Equipe bistro and had an 18-month-old child.

- SPAIN: News reports named a Spanish victim as 29-year-old Juan Alberto Gonzalez Garrido. El Mundo newspaper reported he was at Bataclan theatre with his wife, who had managed to escape. However, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was unable to confirm the reports.

- SWEDEN: One Swedish national was likely killed and another wounded by gunfire, according to the foreign ministry, which said it was still verifying the information.

- TUNISIA: Two young Tunisian sisters who lived in the French region of Creusot were killed while celebrating a friend's birthday in Paris, according to the Tunisian foreign ministry.

- UNITED STATES: See dual national Nohemi Gonzalez in Mexico section.

Other US citizens and a Swiss woman are reported to be injured, while two Brazilians were wounded in the attacks, President Dilma Rousseff said.

 

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Two attackers killed in Paris were Frenchmen who lived in Brussels: prosecutor

AFP
November 16, 2015, 4:45 am

Brussels (AFP) - Two assailants who died in the Paris attacks were Frenchmen who had lived in Brussels, Belgian prosecutors said Sunday.

The Belgian authorities are holding seven people for questioning in connection with the attacks, and investigators have found that two cars used in the operation were rented in Belgium, they added.

"It appears that two French nationals, who lived in Brussels... were identified as among the attackers who died on the spot," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.

The statement said two cars registered in Belgium were found in the Paris area, with one found near the Bataclan, where 89 people lost their lives.

A spokesman later told AFP the second car was discovered in the eastern suburb of Montreuil -- correcting an earlier statement which said it was found near Paris' Pere Lachaise cemetery.

"The investigation shows that the two vehicles were rented at the beginning of the week in the Brussels area," the statement added.

It said that a total of seven people had been detained for questioning.

"Some of them may be put before an investigating magistrate in the next few hours," it added.

It was previously announced that police made several arrests when they carried out raids Saturday in the poor immigrant Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek, which has been linked to past terror plots.

The prosecutors did not confirm whether all of the seven were arrested in Molenbeek.

Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said Saturday that the arrests in Molenbeek "can be seen in connection with a grey Polo car rented in Belgium" found near the Bataclan.

At least 129 people were killed and more than 350 injured in coordinated attacks that targeted the Bataclan, restaurants and the Stade de France stadium.

 

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Belgium launches international manhunt for Paris attack suspect: source

AFP
November 16, 2015, 4:46 am

Brussels (AFP) - Belgium has issued an international arrest warrant for a man suspected of having taken part in the Paris attacks with two of his brothers, a judicial source said Sunday.

Sources close to the investigation say they believe that the three brothers were involved in Friday's attacks that claimed at least 129 lives.

One is on the run, one is in custody in Belgium -- though it is unclear whether he took part in the rampage -- while the third was one of the attackers who blew themselves up at the Bataclan concert hall after killing at least 89 people, the source said.

The Belgian authorities are holding seven people for questioning in connection with the attacks, and investigators have found that two cars used in the operation were rented in Belgium, prosecutors said.

It was previously announced that police made several arrests when they carried out raids Saturday in the poor immigrant Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek, which has been linked to past terror plots.

As the investigation into the bloodshed widened, French police found an abandoned car containing assault rifles on the outskirts of Paris. Witnesses said the black SEAT was used by one of three groups who carried out the deadliest attacks in France since World War 2.

Another car was found near the Bataclan.

 

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Paris attacks: what we know so far

AFP
November 16, 2015, 3:46 am

Paris (AFP) - French investigators believe there were three teams involved in Friday's attacks on Paris and are probing possible links to the conflict in Syria in a joint inquiry with Belgium.

Seven of the gunmen and suicide bombers who took part in the carnage, which killed 129 and was claimed by Islamic State jihadists, died in the bloodshed.

But the discovery of a black Seat car containing several AK47 rifles, which was used by the attackers at several locations, has raised questions about others who may still be at large in a probe which is increasingly pointing to Belgium.

- How were the teams organised? -

Investigators are working on the theory that there were three teams.

The initial strike was by a team of suicide bombers outside the Stade de France where the first blew himself up at 9:20pm (2020 GMT) while the French and German national football teams were playing a friendly. The other two set off their explosive belts at 9:30pm and 9:53pm.

Despite US media reports, there is no proof any had a ticket to the game, investigation sources say. It remains unclear why the first attacker blew himself up outside the stadium in an area with no people.

The second team entered the Bataclan concert hall at around 9:40pm. Among them was 29-year-old Paris native Omar Ismail Mostefai. Three attackers were killed during a counter-assault by French security forces.

According to a source close to the inquiry, the third team carried out three shooting attacks on several bars and restaurants in central Paris at 9:25pm, 9:32pm and 9:36pm, firing hundreds of bullets. A suicide bomber also blew himself up in a bar at 9:40pm on Boulevard Voltaire.

The question now is: was this third team made up of suspects arrested on Saturday in Belgium? Until this is confirmed, the hypothesis that some attackers are still at large cannot be ruled out.

- The Syrian connection -

Since 2012, jihadists heading to Syria have been the biggest concern for Europe's counter-terror services, with France and Belgium among the countries most concerned by the phenomenon.

Although the security forces had opened an "S file" on Mostefai -- a category for suspects who are potentially radicalised -- he passed under the radar, and in all probability spent some time in Syria in 2014. Did he return with instructions? In April 2014, another French jihadist called Ibrahim Boudina was arrested after returning from Syria on suspicion of planning an attack along the French Riviera.

What of the other alleged attackers? Are we dealing with a group of jihadist veterans who fought in Iraq or Syria? At the Bataclan, the attackers were overheard speaking about both places.

Investigators remain cautious over the Syrian passport found near the body of the first suicide bomber to blow himself up by the stadium. The name on it is unknown to French anti-terror authorities. And a source close to the inquiry said it remained unclear whether the holder of the passport was in fact one of the suicide bombers. Greek police said they have been asked for information on two Syrians who registered as refugees in recent months, but the figure of two has not been confirmed, with French investigators seeking information on just one name, the source said.

- Complexities -

The attackers used automatic weapons and a number of Kalashnikovs were found on Saturday evening in an abandoned black Seat car in the eastern suburb of Montreuil. The car is believed to be the one in several of Friday's attacks. There must also have been an explosives specialist involved who put together the explosives belt and he is unlikely to have taken part in the operation since his skills are too precious, expert have told AFP.

The inquiry will also focus on the funding used by the assailants and its sponsors. In several recent attacks in France, such as the January attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine, investigators have found links between the assailants and French-speakers in Syria.

Such questions are unlike to be answered by the interrogation of people close to Mostefai, who appears to have cut ties with at least part of his family.

- Inter-European cooperation -

International cooperation is the Achilles' heel of European counter-terror operations. IS has recognised this and called on its militants to hit neighbouring countries where they are less likely to be known and identified.

The inquiry into an abortive attack on a high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris in August showed major weaknesses in the exchange of information between the respective intelligence services. The Paris attacks will shine a light on whether efforts to improve intelligence-sharing have born fruit.

 

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Suspect held in Germany over weapons find 'wanted to visit Paris'

AFP
November 16, 2015, 12:51 am

Munich (Germany) (AFP) - A man arrested in Germany with explosives and Kalashnikovs in his car said he was on his way to Paris "to see the Eiffel Tower" and refused to discuss the jihadist attacks, police said Sunday.

"We want to talk (about the Paris attacks) with him but he doesn't want to talk. Not about this subject in any case," a spokesman for police in southern Bavaria said.

Police arrested the 51-year-old man from Montenegro on November 5 during a routine check on a Bavaria motorway.

Police said in a statement that an address in Paris was found on a written note in the car as well as in his sat nav system, along with eight assault rifles, three handguns and explosives.

The suspect said he "wanted to see the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and then return home" and had "no knowledge (of the presence) of arms and explosives" in his vehicle, a police statement said.

The navigation system of his VW Golf car showed he had travelled "from Montenegro to Croatia, Slovenia, Austria" before being stopped in Rosenheim, the statement added.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Saturday the authorities had yet to establish any link between the suspect and the gunmen in Paris.

But earlier Saturday Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer said that there was "reason to believe" he was connected to the attackers.

At least 129 people were killed late Friday in a shooting and bombing spree targeting several venues in Paris.

 

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Assailant in Paris attacks identified, relatives questioned

Reuters
November 15, 2015, 6:03 pm

People gather for a vigil outside the French Consulate in response to the attacks in Paris, in Los Angeles, California, United States, November 14, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

PARIS (Reuters) - French police have identified one of the assailants in the coordinated attacks in Paris as Ismael Omar Mostefai, a 29-year- old French national, and seven of his relatives are being questioned, sources and French media said on Sunday.

Authorities had a dossier on Mostefai that marked him as a potential Islamist militant. He also had previous arrest records and had been sentenced eight times for petty crimes, according to French newspaper Le Monde. Mostefai was one of the gunmen who blew himself up in a Paris concert hall where most of the 129 deaths from the attacks late on Friday took place.

His father, a brother and five other people are being held for questioning, several French media reported on Sunday, as the hunt continued for others involved in the shootings.

The reports said searches were also being conducted in the relatives' homes in the northeastern Aube region and in Essonne, south of Paris.

Father-of-one Mostefai was born in Courcouronnes, a southern suburb of Paris and lived in Chartres, southwest of the capital. He is suspected to have stayed in Syria between 2013 and 2014, Le Monde reported.

A source close to the investigation also confirmed media reports that a vehicle, a black Seat, used in the attacks was found with some arms onboard in Montreuil, a suburb in the east of Paris. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said on Saturday that the Seat had been used in the attacks.

A Frenchman who thought to have hired another car used in the attacks was stopped at the Belgian border on Saturday morning, along with two other people, Molins said.

Molins said investigated believed three coordinated teams had carried out the wave of attacks across Paris. They were the worst in Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, in which Islamists killed 191 people.

Friday's attacks were described as an "act of war" by President Francois Hollande.

The bloodshed came as France, a founder member of the U.S.-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, was already on high alert for terrorist attacks.

(Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, Danielle Rouquié and Nicolas Bertin; Writing by Andrew Callus and Bate Felix; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Mark John)

 

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Omar Ismail Mostefai: from petty criminal to cold-blooded terrorist

AFP
November 15, 2015, 4:09 pm

Courcouronnes (France) (AFP) - Omar Ismail Mostefai was known to police as nothing more than a petty criminal before he became the first gunman identified from Friday's attacks in Paris, which left at least 129 dead.

Identified by his finger, which was found among the rubble of the Bataclan concert hall, the 29-year-old was one of three men who blew himself up killing 89 people in the bloodiest scene of the carnage.

Born on November 21 1985, in the poor Paris suburb of Courcouronnes, Mostefai's criminal record shows eight convictions for petty crimes between 2004 and 2010, but no jail time.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Mostefai had been singled out as a high-priority target for radicalisation in 2010 but, before Friday, he had "never been implicated in an investigation or a terrorist association".

Investigators are now probing whether he took a trip to Syria last year, according to police sources.

The killer's father and 34-year-old brother were placed in custody on Saturday evening and their homes were searched.

"It's a crazy thing, it's madness," his brother told AFP, his voice trembling, before he has taken into custody.

"Yesterday I was in Paris and I saw how this shit went down."

The brother, one of four boys in the family along with two sisters, turned himself in to police after learning Mostefai was involved in the attacks.

While he had cut ties with Mostefai several years ago, and knew he had been involved in petty crimes, his brother said he had never imagined his brother could be radicalised.

The last he knew, Mostefai had gone to Algeria with his family and his "little girl," he said, adding: "It's been a time since I have had any news."

"I called my mother, she didn't seem to know anything," he said Saturday.

A source close to the enquiry said Mostefai regularly attended the mosque in Luce, close to Chartres, to the southwest of Paris.

 

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The three brothers behind Paris terror attacks: Police issue wanted poster for Belgian-born suspect as they reveal one of his siblings blew himself up in a suicide attack and another is in custody

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3318765/Paris-terror-suspects-arrested-Brussels-car-given-fine.html

 

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Belgian jihadi ID'd by French as mastermind of Paris attacks

Raphael Satter and John-Thor Dahlburg, The Associated Press
First posted: Monday, November 16, 2015 07:17 AM EST | Updated: Monday, November 16, 2015 11:50 AM EST

BRUSSELS -- Once a happy-go-lucky student at one of Brussels' most prestigious high schools, Saint-Pierre d'Uccle, Abdelhamid Abaaoud morphed into Belgium's most notorious jihadi, a zealot so devoted to the cause of holy war that he recruited his 13-year-old brother to join him in Syria.

The child of Moroccan immigrants who grew up in the Belgian capital's scruffy and multiethnic Molenbeek-Saint-Jean neighbourhood, the fugitive, in his late 20s, was identified by French authorities on Monday as the presumed mastermind of the attacks last Friday in Paris that killed 129 people and injured hundreds.

What's more, one French official with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that Abaaoud is believed to have links to earlier terror attacks that were thwarted: one against a Paris-bound high-speed train that was foiled by three young Americans in August, and the other against a church in the French capital's suburbs.

The official wasn't authorized to make public comments on the subject and spoke on condition of anonymity.

"All my life, I have seen the blood of Muslims flow," Abaaoud said in a video made public in 2014. "I pray that Allah will break the backs of those who oppose him, his soldiers and his admirers, and that he will exterminate them."

Belgian authorities suspect him of also helping organize and finance a terror cell in the eastern city of Verviers that was broken up in an armed police raid on Jan. 15, in which two of his presumed accomplices were killed.

The following month, Abaaoud was quoted by the Islamic State group's English-language magazine, Dabiq, as saying that he had secretly returned to Belgium to lead the terror cell and then escaped to Syria in the aftermath of the raid despite having his picture broadcast across the news.

"I was even stopped by an officer who contemplated me so as to compare me to the picture, but he let me go, as he did not see the resemblance!" Abaaoud boasted.

There was no official comment from the Belgian federal prosecutor's office about Abaaoud's reported role in the Paris attacks. Belgian police over the weekend announced the arrest of three suspects in Molenbeek, his old neighbourhood, and were carrying out numerous searches there Monday.

The hardscrabble area in the west of Brussels has long been considered a focal point of Islamic radicalism and recruitment of foreign fighters to go to Iraq and Syria.

Abaaoud's image became grimmer after independent journalists Etienne Huver and Guillaume Lhotellier, visiting the Turkish-Syrian frontier, obtained photos and video last year of Abaaoud's exploits across Syria. The material included footage of him and his friends loading a pickup truck and a makeshift trailer with a mound of bloodied corpses.

Before driving off, a grinning Abaaoud tells the camera: "Before we towed jet skis, motorcycles, quad bikes, big trailers filled with gifts for vacation in Morocco. Now, thank God, following God's path, we're towing apostates, infidels who are fighting us."

Huver told The Associated Press Monday the video was too fragmentary to say much about Abaaoud's character, but that he detected some signs the Belgian was moving into a leadership role.

"On the one hand I'm surprised," Huver said of Abaaoud's prominence. "On the other hand, I saw that there were beginnings of something . You can see that he's giving orders. You can feel a charismatic guy who's going up in the world ... You can see a combatant who's ready to climb the ranks."

French authorities didn't immediately disclose the nature of the Belgian jihadi's purported connection to a pair of foiled terrorism incidents earlier this year in France.

On Aug. 21, a heavily-armed passenger who boarded an Amsterdam-to-Paris Thalys high-speed train at Brussels opened fire in a train car before being overpowered by three Americans, two of them off-duty members of the U.S. armed forces.

French media reported the gunman in the abortive attack, Ayoub El Khazzani, 25, from Morocco, may have had ties to groups being investigated by counter-terrorism officials in Belgium.

Belgian authorities launched an investigation into his possible accomplices. El Khazzani has been jailed in France on various charges including attempted murder in connection with terrorism and participation in a terror conspiracy.

On April 19, French authorities said they thwarted a plot to attack a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif after the alleged perpetrator apparently shot himself in the leg and called police.

Arriving officers traced the blood to the car of Sid Ahmed Ghlam, in which they found an arsenal of weapons and indications he was planning to storm a church later in the day.

French authorities have said the plot was masterminded from Syria.

 

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More than 10,000 on French list of potential terror suspects

AFP
November 17, 2015, 7:28 am

Paris (AFP) - France has listed more than 10,000 people suspected of being radicalised or potential security threats, including homegrown assailant Omar Ismail Mostefai who killed scores of people at Paris's Bataclan music on Friday.

According to police sources, the so-called "fiche S" ("S file" in French) is updated daily to include individuals suspected of links to a terrorist movement or group.

The "S" stands for the suspects' potential to endanger the "security of the state".

The list has 15 categories spanning everyone from football hooligans to battle-hardened jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria.

The suspects come into the spotlight if they are arrested or subject to a check after which they are immediately on the radar of the intelligence services.

"There are more than 10,000 people who are on the fiche S list," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said over the weekend.

Some of them are already known to security forces or sentenced for acts of terror, while the others are suspected of either having been radicalised or susceptible to it.

More and more cases of radicalised assailants have surfaced recently including the Al-Qaeda-linked gunman Mohammed Merah who killed seven people in and around the southern city of Toulouse in 2012.

The same was true of the attackers who targeted the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in February this year, killing 17 people.

And Yassin Salhi, who killed and decapitated his employer in Isere in southeastern France in June had been on the S list for two years but had never come to the attention of the police.

This can happen because the suspects are not automatically subject to surveillance.

"It's more or less an indicator, like a thermometer that one has to monitor and feed all the time for it to be efficient," a police officer said.

There is cross-border cooperation and intelligence-sharing on drawing up suspects to be added to the list.

Moroccan Ayoub El Khazzani who in August attacked passengers on a train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris before being overpowered by three Americans, was on the list, thanks to warnings from Spanish and Belgian authorities who had alerted the French. Khazzani had lived both in Spain and Belgium.

 

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Hunt for 'Public Enemy Number One' Salah Abdeslam may be over

Yahoo and Agencies
November 16, 2015, 10:20 pm

There are mixed reports over claims Salah Abdeslmam, a Frenchman wanted over the Paris terror attacks, has been arrested in Belgium.

Belgian broadcaster RTL said Brussels police had arrested Salah Abdeslam, a Frenchman wanted in connection with the Paris attacks, during an operation in the Belgian capital on Monday.

However, Belgian public broadcaster RTBF reported that police had detained a person during a raid in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, but that it was not wanted Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam.

Handout picture shows Belgian-born Abdeslam Salah seen on a call for witnesses notice released by the French Police Nationale information services. Photo: Police Nationale

It comes just three days after he was released by police just hours after the initial bombings and shootings on Friday.

Officials said the Belgian-born 26-year-old was pulled over in a rental car near the Belgian border and let go after being questioned.

Belgian police launched a major new operation on Monday in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, where several suspects in the Paris attacks had previously lived, AFP journalists said.

Dozens of armed police, some wearing balaclavas, stood in front of a police van blocking a street in the run-down area of the capital, the site of a number of arrests following the attacks in France which killed 129 people.

Police issued a warning over a loudspeaker to residents, AFP reporters said, while Belgian media reported that officers had surrounded a house and were telling the occupants to come out.

Authorities had already identified the man as the person who rented a Volkswagen Polo found near the near the Bataclan concert hall, where at least 89 people were killed during a concert by US band Eagles of Death Metal.

Several AK47 rifles were found inside the car.

So far, investigators have found that two cars used in the operation were rented in Belgium, prosecutors said.

Ahmed Almuhamed is a known attacker who may have posed as an asylum seeker. Photo: Supplied

Police have identified another man, Ahmed Almuhamed, as one of the attackers, who crossed into Serbia as an asylum seeker from Macedonia.

Almuhamed's passport was found near the bodies of militants inside the Bataclan concert hall, although its authenticity is still in question.

Another known attacker has been identified as 29-year-old French national Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, from Essonne. Authorities believe he has ties to Islamist militants and had been under surveillance by the security services.

His detached finger was found at the Bataclan concert hall, the scene of the bloodiest attack.

Mostefaï's brother and father have also been detained by French police after they contacted authorities.

There are reports that he had a young daughter and had minor convictions on his criminal record.

Police were holding people close to one of the attackers yesterday, according to multiple reports.

Photo: AP Images

Seven arrests after string of Paris attacks

There have been a total of seven arrests in Belgium and police say two of the men, who arrived in Greece last month, were among the attackers. One is believed to be as young as 15.

Earlier, three men were arrested in Brussels, where three of the attackers are reported to have lived.

Syrian and Egyptian passports were found with the bodies of two more of the attackers.

French Senator, Nathalie Goulet, named 20-year-old Bilal Hadfi as one of the suicide bombers who attacked the Stade de France.

Three days of mourning after 'act of war'

President Francois Hollande called an "act of war" by Islamic State and declared a state of emergency, ordering police and troops into the streets, and set three days of official mourning as a stunned nation sought to comprehend the simultaneous assault on restaurants, a concert hall and the national soccer stadium on Friday.

The investigation into the bloodshed widened discovery after a suspected getaway car was found near the Bataclan and inside several AK47 rifles were found in the car, French media quote judicial sources as saying.

Photo: AP

Photo: AP

The attack sites

The official death toll now stands at 132 with hundreds injured and in a critical condition.

La Belle Equipe is a popular French bistro where a gunman took the lives of 19 civilians.

Le Carillon bar and Le Petit Cambodge restaurant saw 15 people killed in the gun attacks.

Another gunman killed five at La Casa Nostra restaurant.

Explosions were heard outside Stade de France resulting in three attackers and a bystander dead.

Bataclan concert venue was stormed by gunmen who took 89 lives.

 

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French police carried out 170 raids since Paris attacks: minister

AFP
November 16, 2015, 9:56 pm

Paris (AFP) - French police carried out nearly 170 searches and arrested 23 people in raids overnight Sunday in the wake of the attacks on Paris and more than 100 people have been placed under house arrest, the interior minister said.

A total of 31 weapons were seized, Bernard Cazeneuve added, with sources telling AFP they included a rocket launcher and a Kalashnikov rifle found near the southeast city of Lyon.

 

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Putin says Paris attacks show need for anti-terror coalition

AFP
November 17, 2015, 2:41 am

Antalya (Turkey) (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday said that the attacks in Paris showed the need for his proposal for an international anti-terror coalition to be realised.

"I think that not only we are able, but it is also indispensible" to form an international anti-terrorist coalition, Putin told reporters after the G20 summit in the Turkish resort of Antalya. "I spoke about this at the United Nations... and the tragic events that followed have confirmed that we were right."

 

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Suspected Paris bomber Samy Amimour went to Syria two years ago: family

AFP
November 16, 2015, 9:21 pm

Paris (AFP) - One of the suicide bombers who attacked a Paris concert hall had gone to Syria two years ago after being radicalised in France, his family had told AFP before Friday's attacks.

Paris-born Samy Amimour, 28, had been charged with terrorist offences "after an abortive attempt to travel to Yemen", Paris prosecutors said, but his family said he travelled to Syria in 2013.

Investigators believe he was one of the three men to attack the Bataclan music venue where 89 people were killed.

 

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Paris attacks: German police make arrests near Aachen

Date November 18, 2015 - 1:53AM

US President Barack Obama says the attacks in Paris were a setback in the fight against Islamic State, but that the US-led coalition is making progress in bringing down the militant group.

Duesseldorf: Police in the western German city of Aachen arrested five people, at least three of them foreign citizens, on Tuesday in an operation linked to the militant attacks last Friday in Paris that killed 129 people.

A special police response unit overpowered two women and one man outside a job centre in Alsdorf, a small town near Aachen close to Germany's border with Belgium and the Netherlands.

Arrests made: German special police in Alsdorf on Tuesday. Photo: DPA

"After the terror attacks last Friday in Paris and the search for the perpetrators and the people pulling the strings, police in Aachen got a lead to suspicious individuals in Alsdorf," a police statement said.

A spokesman said the three were foreign citizens but declined to elaborate on their identity pending investigations.

Later on Tuesday, police arrested two more people in Alsdorf, the statement said, giving no details.

Police near Alsdorf in the Aachen region of Germany on Tuesday. Photo: DPA

A manhunt is on in France and Belgium for one of the eight attackers involved in shooting and bomb attacks on restaurants, a music hall and a sports stadium in Paris on Friday evening.

European search efforts are focusing on Belgian-born Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, 23, who investigators say escaped back to Belgium on Saturday after the attacks. Austria's interior ministry said earlier he had entered the country from Germany in early September, telling authorities he was on holiday.

France and Russia both staged air strikes on Islamic State targets in northern Syria on Tuesday as Paris formally requested European Union assistance in its fight against the group behind the carnage in Paris.

A German special police officer in Alsdorf on Tuesday. Photo: DPA