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Suspected Mastermind Of Paris Attacks Killed In Police Raid by PsmartexLLB(m): 7:39am On Nov 20, 2015 |
The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks was
among those killed in a police raid in a northern suburb
of the French capital on Wednesday, authorities said
Thursday, as the lower house of the French Parliament
voted to extend state-of-emergency powers until
February and Belgian officials continued their search for
another suspect, who remains on the run.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian who had
boasted of mounting attacks in Europe for the Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), was accused of
orchestrating Friday's bombings and shootings. His
body was found in the apartment building targeted in
a chaotic raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis early
Wednesday morning.
Police launched the raid after receiving information
from tapped phone calls, surveillance and witness
accounts suggesting that Abaaoud was holed up there.
Killed along with Abaaoud was his cousin, who blew
herself up with an explosives vest at the beginning of
the raid, police said. Eight people were arrested in two
separate raids in the area on Wednesday.
"Abdel Hamid Abaaoud has just been formally identified,
after comparing fingerprints, as having been killed
during the (police) raid," a statement from the Paris
prosecutor said. "It was the body we had discovered in
the building, riddled with bullets." But the prosecutor's
office left open the possibility that Abaaoud may also
have detonated an explosive device on his person.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says France
did not know before last week's deadly attacks that
Abaaoud was in Europe. Cazeneuve said Abaaoud was
believed to be behind four of six attacks thwarted in
France since spring 2015, including an attempted attack
on a high-speed train headed to Paris in August that
was foiled by other train passengers.
News of Abaaoud's death came as Belgian authorities
detained seven people during several raids Thursday
morning in Molenbeek, a Brussels district. The raids
were linked to one of the suicide bombers in last
week's attacks, Bilal Hadfi, and "his entourage," a
Belgian official said.
Another suspect who had lived in Molenbeek, Salah
Abdeslam, 26, remains on the run. He is suspected of
having rented a black VW Polo car used in the attacks in
Paris.
"In this community of Muslims in Molenbeek there is a
lot of unemployment and, in this situation, it’s a basis
where hate preachers can find and indoctrinate people,"
Jan Jambon, the Belgian interior minister, told Al
Jazeera. "This analysis is already made for years but
the political will was never there to change things."
Fatima Bourial, a shop assistant who grew up in
Molenbeek and still lives there, said Abaaoud's actions
have "nothing to do with Islam."
"Everybody hates what he has done," Bourial said. "This
is not human what he did. I can't understand how
somebody can kill innocent people in the hope of going
to paradise."
On Friday Jambon will meet in Brussels with European
interior and justice ministers. It's expected that French
officials will call for strengthened counter-terrorism
measures and tightened border checks. Officials also
will mull measures to enforce stricter controls of
firearm sales and enhanced intelligence-sharing.
With France still reeling from the Friday attacks, Prime
Minister Manuel Valls warned that ISIL might attempt
to use chemical or biological weapons.
"Terrorism hit France not because of what it is doing in
Iraq and Syria ... but for what it is," Valls told the lower
house of Parliament Thursday. "We know that there
could also be a risk of chemical or biological weapons."
Valls' announcement came as the National Assembly, in
a 551 to 6 vote, agreed to extend state-of-emergency
powers until February. The vote allows the interior
ministry to order house arrests and house searches
without judicial approval. Since Friday’s attacks, the
ministry has ordered house arrest for over 100 people,
and it has conducted nearly 200 house searches.
State-of-emergency powers also allow police to prohibit
the free movement of people and vehicles at any time,
to block access to certain websites, and to set up
checkpoints outside public and private buildings
suspected of harboring people deemed dangerous to
national security.
These powers were first enacted in 1955 at the start of
France’s war with Algeria. Since then, France has
decreed a state of emergency twice: in 1985 in the
Pacific island territory of New Caledonia amid massive
unrest between separatists and French loyalists, and in
2005 in response to three weeks of rioting in Paris and
hundreds of other French towns. |
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