Suspected Paris attack mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud linked to other attacks
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader behind the attacks that killed 129 people in Paris last week, was killed in a raid on the northern Paris suburb of Saint Denis on Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor said.
French radio station RTL described him as "one of the most active" Islamic State executioners in Syria.
The 27-year-old Belgian is believed to be linked to thwarted attacks on a high-speed train bound for the French capital from Amsterdam and a church in the Paris area earlier this year, an unnamed official not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, told the Associated Press.
RTL said Abaaoud is from the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, which has been linked to several terrorist attacks. A major police operation took place there Monday, which failed to yield any terror-related arrests. Another raid was taking place in areas of Brussels including Molenbeek on Thursday, centered on compatriots of Bilal Hadfi, 20, one of the Paris suicide bombers.
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In a video that emerged in 2014, Abaaoud said: “All my life, I have seen the blood of Muslims flow. I pray that Allah will break the backs of those who oppose him, his soldiers and his admirers, and that he will exterminate them.”
Once a student at Saint-Pierre d’Uccle, one of the most prestigious high schools in Brussels, Abaaoud — a grocer's son — took his 13-year-old brother Younes to Syria with him, according to media reports.
The Guardian reported that Abaaoud, who is believed to be of Moroccan origin, was first identified as a militant following a raid on an Islamic State cell in the town of Verviers, about 80 miles southeast of Brussels in January. A magistrate said the cell was planning a "major, imminent attack" in Belgium. Two terror suspects were killed during a gunfight with security forces.
In an interview in Dabiq, the Islamic State's English-language magazine in February, Abaaoud, using the nickname Abu Umar al-Baljiki, said he fled following the raid as authorities hunted him, Vocativ.com reported.
"All this proves that a Muslim should not fear the bloated image of the crusader intelligence," he said, according to the website. "My name and picture were all over the news yet I was able to stay in their homeland, plan operations against them, and leave safely when doing so became necessary."
He added: "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! This was nothing but a gift from Allah."
Abaaoud tried to justify the terror attack plot by saying: “Belgium is a member of the crusader coalition attacking the Muslims of Iraq and Shām (Syria),” Vocativ.com reported.
Last year, independent journalists Etienne Huver and Guillaume Lhotellier obtained footage of Abaaoud and fellow extremists in Syria loading a pickup truck and trailer with dead bodies, the AP reported.
Abaaoud was captured on camera saying: “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.”
In April, French authorities said they foiled an "imminent" terrorist attack on churchgoers after a man was arrested in Paris with an arsenal of weapons. In August, passengers tackled and subdued a man as he apparently prepared to open fire on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris.