Thread: Paris attacks: Suicide bomber identified

Paris attacks: Suicide bomber identified; ISIS claims responsibility for 129 dead

By Mariano Castillo, Margot Haddad, Michael Martinez and Steve Almasy, CNN
Updated 10:19 PM ET, Sat November 14, 2015

Paris (CNN)Authorities in France and Belgium took people into custody Saturday in the aftermath of the worst violence in France since World War II, a series of terror attacks that killed more than 120 people.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the horrific Paris attacks, for which France vowed revenge.

President Francois Hollande deemed the shootings and bombings "an act of war." He said early Saturday, "We will lead the fight, and we will be ruthless."

French President vows 'ruthless' response

Belgian authorities made a number of arrests there in the first publicized apprehensions after Friday night's bloodshed, a Belgian Justice Ministry spokeswoman said Saturday.

In Belgium, raids were conducted in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Justice Ministry spokeswoman Sieghild Lacoere said. A car rented in Brussels was found near one of the sites of the Paris attacks, and "that's what triggered the raids," Lacoere said.

In all, the raids took place in three homes in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, a Western intelligence source told CNN.

Police conduct raids in Belgium02:21

At least one of the raids is connected to the Paris attacks, according to the source, who is in contact with French and Belgian intelligence services. The other raids are connected to individuals known to Belgium intelligence, the source said. Some of the Paris attackers are also known to Belgium intelligence, the source added.

Also Saturday, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported that the father and a brother of one of the attackers had been taken into custody. And AFP reported that the two men were detained after police raided their homes 130 kilometers (81 miles) east of Paris. CNN has not independently verified that the men were picked up by authorities.

One of the suicide bombers in Friday's attacks has been identified as Ismael Omar Mostefai, according to a French member of Parliament. Mostefai lived in Chartres at least until 2012, said Jean-Pierre Gorges, who is mayor of the French town as well as a member of Parliament, via Facebook.

Man stopped at border

A man who rented a VW Polo used by terrorists at the Bataclan concert venue was intercepted at the border with Belgium, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said. The man, who was driving a different vehicle when he was caught, is a French national living in Belgium and was accompanied by two other people, Molins said.

One of the terrorists who died in Paris was identified as a 29-year-old French national from Courcouronnes in the city's southern suburbs, Molins said Saturday.

That individual was involved in the attack on a concert hall, had a criminal history and was identified as having been radicalized in 2010, but that person had never been accused of terrorism, Molins said.

Molins said the attacker was identified by fingerprints.

In the nearly simultaneous attacks on Friday night, the assailants targeted six sites, the deadliest being a massacre at a concert hall where at least 80 people were killed.

In addition to the 129 people killed in Paris, 352 were injured, at least 99 seriously, Molins said Saturday. Seven terrorists were killed, French officials have said. They all had assault rifles, Molins added.

At least one American is among the 129 dead, officials said. The U.S. victim was Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, of El Monte, California, a junior studying design in Paris for a semester while enrolled at California State University, Long Beach, the school said.

Three Chileans also were killed, as were two people from Belgium, two from Mexico, two from Spain, one from Portugal, one from the United Kingdom and many French citizens. Other nations whose citizens were killed had yet to identify those victims.

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http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/14/world/paris-attacks/

Paris attack suspects may still be at large, source says

By Jethro Mullen, Margot Haddad, Don Melvin and Ashley Fantz, CNN
Updated 11:41 AM ET, Sun November 15, 2015

Paris (CNN)It's possible that suspects directly involved in Friday's Paris terror attacks remain at large, a French counterterrorism source close to the investigation told CNN on Sunday.

A number of arrests linked to the attacks have been made in Belgium, but it is unclear whether they include the occupant or occupants of an abandoned car with weapons inside found in eastern Paris, the source said.

Those revelations come as new details about the attackers emerge. Europe's worst security nightmare appears to be coming true: At least one of the terrorists who attacked civilians in Paris on Friday entered the European Union hidden among the wave of refugees arriving on European shores.
One of three bombers who detonated himself at the Stade de France late Friday arrived on the Greek island of Leros on October 3 among numerous Syrian refugees, CNN's Christiane Amanpour reported, citing an unnamed French senator who was briefed by the Ministry of the Interior.

The man declared himself to be Syrian, said his name was Ahmad al Mohammad and was, under new procedures set up to help refugees, issued a new emergency passport or similar document.

From Leros, he traveled to Macedonia, Serbia and then Croatia, Amanpour reported.

The fingerprints from the bomber at the Stade de France match those taken when the man was issued his emergency travel document on Leros.

The two others who detonated themselves at the stadium carried false Turkish passports, Amanpour reported.

It appears that the Islamic extremist group ISIS is making good on its pledge to hide operatives among the tide of legitimate refugees now entering Europe.

European officials believe, Amanpour said, that there is "a very professional new squad of terrorists inserting themselves into some of these migrant voyages."

ISIS has claimed responsibility for Friday night's coordinated series of deadly assaults, the worst violence in France since World War II.

Three Kalashnikovs found in abandoned car

Investigators in France and elsewhere have begun making arrests as they begin to uncover the identities and backstories of the terrorists who killed more than 120 people in gun and bomb attacks across Paris.

Clues and evidence appeared to be piling up Sunday. The French channel BFMTV, a CNN affiliate, reported that authorities had found three Kalashnikov automatic rifles in an abandoned car in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil that was believed to have been used by perpetrators of the attacks.

At least seven people have been arrested in raids in Belgium connected to the Paris attacks, officials said. Those arrested were in contact with the Paris attackers, a senior Belgian counterterrorism source told CNN. No weapons or explosives were found on them.

Two attackers have been identified as French citizens who lived in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, according to Jean Thoreau, spokesman for Belgian Federal prosecutor, who spoke to CNN on the phone.

But officials are still trying to figure out who the assailants were and how they planned and carried out near-simultaneous massacres at restaurants, bars and a concert hall in the French capital without being detected beforehand by intelligence agencies.

One of the suicide bombers has been identified as Ismael Omar Mostefai, according to Jean-Pierre Gorges, the mayor of the French town of Chartres, who is also a member of Parliament.

Mostefai lived in Chartres at least until 2012, Gorges said in a Facebook post Saturday.

Complete coverage of Paris attacks

One attacker identified as French

The news agency Agence France-Presse reported that Mostefai was the same attacker who was described Saturday by Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, something CNN has not confirmed independently.



Molins, who did not identify the attacker by name, said he was a 29-year-old French citizen with a criminal record from the southern Paris suburbs.

The attacker was involved in the assault and hostage-taking at the Bataclan concert hall, where the highest number of people were killed Friday, according to the prosecutor.

The man, who was identified by fingerprints, was believed to have been radicalized in 2010 but had never been accused of terrorism, Molins said.

Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, the Paris prosecutor's spokeswoman, told CNN that six people -- all family relatives of Mostefaï -- have been detained.

It is common practice in criminal cases in France to place family members in custody. Mostefaï's relatives have not been charged or arrested.

What we know about the attacks

Raids in France, Belgium

As investigations into the attacks gathered speed over the weekend, authorities detained people in France and Belgium.

In Belgium, raids were conducted in a Brussels suburb, Justice Ministry spokeswoman Sieghild Lacoere said. A car rented in Brussels was found near one of the sites of the Paris attacks, which triggered the raids, Lacoere said.

At least one of the raids was connected to the Paris attacks, according to a Western intelligence source who is in contact with French and Belgian intelligence services. The other raids were connected to people known to Belgian intelligence, the source told CNN.

Some of the Paris attackers were also known to Belgian intelligence, the source said.

Also Saturday, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported that the father and a brother of one of the attackers had been taken into custody. And AFP reported that the two men were detained after police raided their homes 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of Paris. CNN has not independently verified that the men were picked up by authorities.

A man who rented a VW Polo used by terrorists at the Bataclan was intercepted at the border with Belgium, according to Molins, the Paris prosecutor. The man, who was driving a different vehicle when he was caught, is a French citizen living in Belgium and was accompanied by two other people, Molins said.

Timeline of attacks

'An act of war'

"The skies have been darkened by the horrific attacks that took place in Paris just a day and a half ago," U.S. President Barack Obama, in Turkey for a meeting of the G20 group of countries, said Sunday in a joint media appearance with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"As a NATO ally, we have worked together to bring about pressure on ISIL even as we also try to bring about a political transition inside of Syria that can relieve the suffering of so many people and eliminate the environment in which ISIL can operate," Obama said. ISIL is another acronym for ISIS.

The G20 leaders are expected to focus largely on terrorism in the wake of the attacks in Paris.

French President Francois Hollande has called the shootings and bombings, some of which targeted an international soccer game he was attending, "an act of war." He has vowed merciless revenge on ISIS, which France is already bombing in Iraq and Syria as part of the U.S-led coalition against the militant group.

The French government has declared a state of emergency and announced three days of mourning for the victims of Friday's bloodshed.

But many leaders seem to agree that Friday's attacks in Paris mean the threat to many Western countries has increased.

In the UK on Sunday, British Home Secretary Theresa May is set to chair a meeting of the Cobra crisis response committee in London. Prime Minister David Cameron is in Turkey for the G20. Cobra meetings are held to discuss urgent security matters and include senior figures from the British government and heads of intelligence and security agencies.


The violence that hit six different sites around Paris has deepened the trauma for Parisians, who had already been shaken by a series of terrorist attacks in January that left 17 people dead.

People were still out around the city Saturday, some posing for selfies along the Seine or stealing a kiss in front of the Eiffel Tower. But the tower itself -- like many other tourist attractions, shops and public buildings -- has been closed in the aftermath of the attacks.

French President vows 'ruthless' response

Fears the terror isn't over

Security has been stepped up, with military reinforcements drafted in.

There has been an outpouring of support and solidarity in Paris, but large gatherings in the streets have not materialized, partly because the state of emergency prohibits them.

Sadness and fear are taking a toll, Paris Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman said.

"We don't know yet if this terror in fact is over or not," he told CNN, highlighting the jitters caused by unsubstantiated rumors circulating on social media.

In addition to the 129 people killed in Paris, 352 were injured, at least 99 seriously, Molins said Saturday.

The dead include many French citizens, three Chileans, two Belgians, two Mexicans, two Spaniards, two Portuguese, an American and a Briton.

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Seven of the terrorists were killed, mostly by blowing themselves up, according to French officials. The attackers are believed to have operated in three teams.

U.S. officials say they are waiting for corroboration from DNA and fingerprint tests to help positively identify the attackers, something that will take some time.

The FBI is running through databases an initial batch of names that could be those of the attackers or people associated with them, according to U.S. law enforcement officials. So far none of those names are known to the United States as terrorism suspects, the officials said.

The scale and coordination of Friday's wave of deadly assaults inside a major Western city -- coming soon after ISIS' claim of taking down a Russian airliner in Egypt -- appear to represent a deeply disturbing increase in the extremist group's capabilities.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/15/world/...cks/index.html

French man directly involved in terror attacks being hunted by officials

Published November 15, 2015 FoxNews.com



A French man believed to be directly involved in Friday's Islamic terror attack in Paris that killed 129 and injured 352 was on the run Sunday afternoon and was being hunted by authorities, French security officials said.

The man, one of three brothers believed involved in the killings in central Paris, rented the black Volkswagen Polo used by a group of hostage-takers that left at least 89 people dead inside the Bataclan concert hall, one official said.

One other police official said the manhunt is believed to involve at least one suspect. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. One of the suspect's brothers has been arrested in Belgium and another brother died in the attack, the first official said.

Three of the seven Islamist suicide bombers have already been identified as French citizens, as was at least one of seven other people arrested in neighboring Belgium in connection to the deadly attacks.

One suicide attacker, who was identified from a skin sample, had been living in a Paris suburb, French police said Sunday. A Belgian official said two of the seven suicide bombers were French men living in Brussels, and one of the attackers was living in the Molenbeek neighborhood, which is considered a focal point for religious extremism and fighters going to Syria.

Among the seven people arrested was another French citizen living in the Belgian capital.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/11.../?intcmp=hpbt1

French jets target ISIS in Raqqa

NOVEMBER 15, 2015
France bombs Islamic State HQ, hunts attacker who got away

This undated file photo released Friday, Nov. 13, 2015, by French Police shows 26-year old Salah Abdeslam, who is wanted by police in connection with recent terror attacks in Paris, as police investigations continue. The notice, released on the national police Twitter account, says anyone seeing Salah Abdeslam, should consider him dangerous and call authorities immediately. The notice reads in French: "Call for witnesses - Police are hunting a suspect : Salah Abdeslam, born on Sept. 15, 1989 Brussels, Belgium. ...Dangerous individual don't intervene yourself". Police Nationale via AP

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-wo...#storylink=cpy

US Warplanes Destroy 116 ISIS Fuel Trucks in Syria

No arrests in siege of Belgian extremist hub as suspected 'mastermind' of Paris attacks identified

Published November 16, 2015 FoxNews.com




DEVELOPING -- Explosions rang out Monday during a massive police operation in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek as investigators searched for a suspect in the Paris massacre, but they said they failed to make any arrests.

Police were seeking the suspected attacker Salah Abdeslam, 26, and any possible associates. Dozens of masked and heavily armed security officials had sealed off the area and neighbors were told to stay out of harm's way. Molenbeek mayor Francoise Schepmans said the operation ended after more than three hours.

One of the suspect's brothers, Brahim Abdeslam, killed himself in Friday's string of attacks. Another brother, Mohammad, was released after being detained over the weekend, according to his attorney. She told the RTL network her client "hadn't made the same life choices."

In all, five of the seven people who were detained over the weekend because of possible links to the massacre have been released, according to the Belgian federal prosecutor's office.

Two others have been charged with being part of a terror group and links to a terror attack, the office said in a statement.

The U.S. and Russia were among the nations rushing to France's aid. French president Francois Hollande announced Monday that he would soon speak with Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin to discuss pooling their efforts to destroy ISIS. He also urged his parliament to extend France's state of emergency for three months.

Investigators identified a Belgian jihadist believed to be fighting alongside ISIS in Syria as the suspected mastermind behind Friday's attacks that killed at least 129 people.

A French official told The Associated Press that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old from Molenbeek, was also believed to have ties to the thwarted attack on a Paris-bound high-speed train this past August, as well as a failed plot to attack a Paris-area church. He is reportedly the child of Moroccan immigrants.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Abaaoud was the head of a terror cell based in Verviers, Belgium that was broken up by police this past January. However, he appears to have escaped the clutches of the authorities and made his way to Syria.

Salah Abdeslam had been stopped at the French border with Belgium early Saturday, hours after the attacks, The Associated Press reported.

Three French police officials and a top French security official told the news agency that border officers let Abdeslam go after checking his ID. By then, hours had passed since authorities identified Abdeslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage takers to the Bataclan, where 89 concert-goers were murdered by terrorists.

Three Kalashnikovs were found inside another car, a Belgian-registered Seat Leon known to have been used in the attacks, in Montreuil, an eastern Parisian suburb, another French police official said.

Related Image



The Eiffel Tower lit up in the French national colors Monday. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)


France launched a series of airstrikes targeting the Syrian city of Raqqa, its biggest campaign in months. Sunday's strikes killed an unspecified number of ISIS fighters but did not kill any civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The airstrikes were a central topic at the G20 summit in southern Turkey Monday. Putin said other nations now realize that a joint plan of action represents the only effective means of fighting terror.

He also said the Russian military was in contact with the Syrian opposition, which asked Russia to conduct additional airstrikes.

He did not say whether Russia complied, and there was no public response from any Syrian rebel leaders. Western critics have lashed out at Russia for targeting anti-Assad forces not linked to ISIS.

Speaking at the same summit, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said his nation would not change plans to end its anti-ISIS fight.

Twelve French aircraft, including ten fighter jets, dropped 20 bombs on a command and control center, a jihadi recruitment center, munitions depot and ISIS training camp in Raqqa, France's Defense Ministry said in a statement. The U.S. military had shared data with France about ISIS targets inside Raqqa and pledged to broaden cooperation with the French government, a senior defense official told Fox News.

Raqqa is the de facto capital of ISIS' "caliphate."

The U.S. has conducted the vast majority of coalition attacks on ISIS territory up to this point, and has been almost solely responsible for all coalition bombings of ISIS inside Syria.

However, the nature of Friday's attacks, which devastated France and shocked the world, changed the calculus.

Meanwhile, the scope of the terror threat facing Western Europe became clear as French police uncovered an "arsenal" of weapons as part of 168 pre-dawn raids on suspected Islamists across the country, while France's prime minister warned that "terrorism could strike again in the days or weeks to come."

"I don't want to scare people but to warn them," Manuel Valls told RTL radio. "We will keep living for a long time with the terrorist threat."

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters that 104 people have been placed under house arrest in the past 48 hours and that 31 weapons had been seized, including a rocket launcher, a flak jacket, and 15 handguns.

"It's just a start," Cazeneuve said, "these operations are going to continue, the response of the Republic will be huge, will be total. The one who targets the Republic, the Republic will catch him, will be implacable."

Also Monday, the Paris prosecutor's office identified two more of the attackers who caused the deadliest day in Paris since the Second World War.

One of the suicide bombers who blew himself up in the Bataclan concert hall after helping to murder 89 concert-goers was identified as 28-year-old Samy Amimour, a French national who had been charged with terrorism offenses in 2012 and was the subject of an international arrest warrant. The Associated Press reported that Amimour had been placed under judicial supervision but dropped off authorities' radar and was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Also, a suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the national soccer stadium was found with a Syrian passport with the name Ahmad Al Mohammad, 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 October.

Meanwhile, Turkish authorities arrested more than half a dozen suspected Islamic State militants who had exchanged messages with the attackers in Paris, according to a Turkish security official.

That official said that the militants were planning a similar attack in Istanbul, and that one suspect is believed to be associated with Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John."

Also, German authorities investigated claims that an Algerian man warned fellow migrants last week of an imminent attack in Paris.

A spokesman for prosecutors said the unidentified 39-year-old was detained at a refugee shelter in Arnsberg, after he told two Syrian men that Paris would be subjected to "fear and terror."

Police will conduct more security checks at a friendly soccer match between England and France planned for Tuesday at London's Wembley Stadium, the English Football Association announced.

Norwegian police said the attack led them to postpone a decision to patrol the streets without weapons. They had traditionally been unarmed, but have carried weapons for about a year after the country's security service raised the terror alert level.

And three days after the massacre, the Eiffel Tower lit up again Monday evening, this time in the French flag's colors: red, white and blue. The 116-year-old international symbol of Paris had gone dark after the attacks Friday.

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Officials identify mastermind behind Paris attacks

BRUSSELS (AP) 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 neighborhood, 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 told The Associated Press, 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.

"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.

A major action with heavily armed police is underway in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek amid a manhunt for a suspect of the Paris attacks.

Police arrested three suspects in the impoverished Brussels neighborhood on Saturday and continued house searches. The special action began early Monday.

Neighbors were told to stay away from the street where masked police have sealed off a section.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says 168 locations across France have been raided overnight, and 104 people have been placed under house arrest in the past 48 hours.

Cazeneuve said Monday: "It's just a start, these operations are going to continue, the response of the Republic will be huge, will be total. The one who targets the Republic, the Republic will catch him,
will be implacable."

Prime Minister David Cameron says seven terror attacks have been foiled in Britain the past six months.

Cameron, speaking on the BBC on Monday, said attacks directed at civilian targets "was the sort of thing we warned about" and that authorities would determine whether further steps are needed to thwart
such atrocities.

Cameron announced earlier that his government is doubling spending on aviation security and is recruiting some 1,900 security and intelligence agents.

Officials identify mastermind behind Paris attacks - My News 4 - KRNV, Reno, NV