 |
| © Militant Photo via AP |
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgian national of Moroccan descent, has already been linked to a number of terror attempts in Europe this year, including a foiled assault aboard a high-speed Paris-bound train in August.
A French official familiar with the case described Abaaoud as the “guru” of several assailants, including Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old tied to Friday’s bloodshed who is now the subject of an international dragnet. In August, a French foreign fighter who returned to France, told authorities that Abaaoud had mentioned “a concert hall” among other possible terror targets to strike in France.
One French official familiar with the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation, said the French government was working to establish the extent of Abaaoud’s role. The official described Abaaoud as a “barbaric man.”
In February, Abaaoud, a graduate of one of Brussels’s most prestigious high schools, was quoted by the Islamic State’s online magazine, Dabiq, as saying he fled to Syria after Belgian authorities broke up an alleged terror cell in the eastern city of Verviers the previous month. At the time, Abaaoud was named as a suspect, the magazine said.
While the expanding investigation produced tantalizing clues about possible plotters, it also underscored the limitations facing Western security agencies against homegrown terror plots.
New information about the attackers showed that at least some were known to French and Belgian security officials. Turkish and Iraqi officials have also reported having warned Western officials about potential threats in the past year.
In Washington, CIA Director John Brennan rejected the idea that the attacks reflected an intelligence failure. He blamed leaks about surveillance capabilities for undermining spy agencies’ ability to protect people.
“Clearly there was an effort that was under way for quite some time,” Brennan said of the Paris plot. He said that European security services’ “ability to monitor and surveil these individuals is under strain.”
The potential for similar violence elsewhere in the West was highlighted Monday when a purported Islamic State subgroup released a video showing militants praising Friday’s attacks and warning that Washington could be next.
Hollande, seeking to reassure French reeling after the second major terror attack in less than a year, is expected to put forward a bill this week to extend a state of emergency for three months, enhancing police power to restrict freedom of movement and gatherings at public places.
At Versailles on Monday, he also proposed more lasting steps, including changes to the constitution that would allow authorities to withdraw French citizenship from people with dual nationality, even if they were born in France, and to prevent French terror suspects from returning to France.
The steps were seen as a reference to the many French-born citizens with roots in North Africa and elsewhere in the Islamic world. Any constitutional changes would need to be approved by the National Assembly.
Hollande also called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council, and said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Obama in coming days to discuss terror plots.
In France, the nation observed a moment of silence. The Eiffel Tower, which dimmed its lights in mourning, was relit at sundown in the national colors of red, white and blue.
Earlier, in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, police sealed off streets during sweeps of homes and apartment blocks, arresting at least one person. But Belgian officials did not announce that any pivotal suspects were in custody.
French police initially said that eight assailants took part in the Paris attacks in three groups — with seven dying amid the bloodshed. The possibility that an eighth attacker was still at large raised hope he could be captured alive and provide critical information on how the attacks took shape and were funded and directed.
French police on Sunday issued an urgent alert and released a photo of a suspect: Salah Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national. Meanwhile, authorities have sketched out the possibility of a larger network linked to the Islamic State that could involve as many as 20 plotters with links stretching to war-ravaged Syria.
Abdeslam’s brother, Mohamed, told authorities he saw no signs of radical views by Salah.
“Absolutely nothing,” he said after being questioned and released by investigators.
He said at least 23 people were detained in overnight raids — at least three near the southern city of Toulouse and several near Lyon — and weapons were seized, including a rocket launcher and automatic rifles.
An earlier death toll of 132 was reduced to 129 after medical officials said they doubled counted some of Friday’s victims.
Authorities also identified two more of the attackers, one of them a 28-year-old Frenchman already charged in a terrorism investigation in 2012.
Samy Amimour, who blew himself up at the Bataclan music hall Friday night, the site of the deadliest attack, had been placed under judicial supervision. An international arrest warrant was issued in the fall of 2013 after he failed to comply with bail conditions. Three of his relatives were placed under police custody Monday morning.
The other new name released Monday was that of Ahmad al-Mohammed, who blew himself up outside the national soccer stadium. He was found with a Syrian passport that gave his name as Ahmad Almohammad, a 25-year-old born in Idlib. The prosecutor’s office says fingerprints from the attacker match those of someone who passed through Greece in early October.
Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, said the attack was “organized, conceived and planned” from Syria, where a nearly five-year-old civil war is raging. Waves of migrants fleeing the civil war have fled to Europe, raising worries that militants could also have used the exodus as way into the continent.
President Obama, speaking at a G-20 conference in Turkey, called the Paris bloodshed “a terrible and sickening” spectacle in what he predicted would be a long fight against the Islamic State. But he clearly ruled out deploying large-scale U.S. ground troops against the Islamic State in its Syrian bases, insisting that air attacks and other current strategies were the best way to eventually defeat the group.
0 Response to "Paris Attacks"
Thanks for give comment.