Police in France and Belgium staged more than 160 anti-terrorism raids on Monday as authorities expanded crackdowns, seized weapons and cast their nets wider for elusive suspects in the Paris attacks, reports The Washington Post.
The intense manhunts unfolded as clearer portraits emerged of the network behind Friday’s carnage that left at least 129 people dead and more than 350 wounded. Among the possible central figures is a Belgian militant, now apparently in Syria, who also could have links to a foiled assault aboard a high-speed Paris-bound train in August.
Another suspect atop the wanted list is a French man who may have slipped away as seven other assailants died in the waves of suicide blasts and gunfire.
Also coming into sharper relief are indications that more of the alleged plotters were known to European investigators long before the massacres.
At the same time, authorities dug deeper into an apparent nexus between Islamic State strongholds in Syria and militant cells in Europe — in particular a Brussels district that is home to many with roots in North Africa and elsewhere.
In the city’s Molenbeek neighbourhood, 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.
In France, where nearly two dozen people were arrested, the nation observed a moment of silence. The Eiffel Tower, which dimmed its lights in mourning, was planned to be relit at sundown in the national colors of red, white and blue.
“France is at war,” French President François Hollande told a joint session of parliament, echoing his ominous declaration made a day after the attacks.
Even as Europe and allies marshaled its forces after the attacks — including stepped-up airstrikes by France in Syria — a purported Islamic State-backed video threatened more strikes in cities including Washington.
The six-minute Arabic-language video released by an Islamic State-linked group in Iraq appears to show militants in Iraq praising the Paris shootings and warning that one day the militants “will strike America in its heartland, in Washington . . . we will invade Rome,” according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant websites.
The authenticity of the video — released on a social media site believed linked to the Islamic State — could not immediately be confirmed. But it lacks some of the hallmarks of previous Islamic State videos, such as dramatic music, slow-motion shots and polished production values.
While investigators followed dozens of leads, many appeared to intersect in Molenbeek in Brussels. Those whose names are emerging include Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old son of Moroccan immigrants who was raised in Molenbeek.
Abaaoud, a graduate of one of Brussels’s most prestigious high schools, appeared to move higher in the Islamic State ranks over the years and made no secret of his intentions to strike in Europe, The Associated Press reported.
In February, Abaaoud 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.
French officials also told the AP that Abaaoud is believed to have ties to other thwarted attacks, including one by a gunman who opened fire on an Amsterdam-to-Paris train in August but was subdued by three American travelers. The gunman, a 26-year-old Moroccan, was arrested.
Meanwhile, another top Paris suspect was sought: an assailant who could have slipped away in the chaos after the gunfire and bombings Friday night in Paris.
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.
“Let this be clear to everyone,” said interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve as raids were carried out across the country. “This is just the beginning, these actions are going to continue.”
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 double 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.
“Clearly there was an effort that was underway for quite some time,” said CIA Director John Brennan, speaking at a conference in Washington. He said the ability of European security agencies to “monitor and surveil these individuals is under strain.”
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 US 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.