French
investigators said Thursday that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind
of the Paris terrorist attacks, died Wednesday in a major police operation in
Saint-Denis, a suburb of the city. Another key suspect linked to Friday's
atrocities by ISIS attackers in the French capital is still at large. And
Belgian authorities are conducting fresh raids around Brussels.
Here are the
most important developments:
French
investigators tracked down the alleged ringleader of last week's Paris
bloodshed after receiving a startling tipoff: The Islamic militant wasn't in
Syria but in Europe, plotting yet another attack. A discarded cellphone found
near a bloodied concert hall led them to his cousin, and then to a suburban
Paris apartment where both died in a hail of bullets and explosions.
The search
for Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has been extended to include the
Netherlands, where Abdeslam had spent time in the past, a source close to the
investigation told CNN. A spokesperson for the Dutch justice ministry told the
news website NU.nl that the search had not expanded into the Netherlands.
Following
the terror attacks in Paris, the FBI is closely monitoring dozens of people
they think pose the highest threat of attempting to carry out a copycat attack
in the United States, according to FBI Director James Comey and Attorney
General Loretta Lynch told reporters. No relationship exists between the Paris
attackers and anyone in the United States, they said.
Hasna Ait Boulahcen was the suicide-vest-clad woman killed during
Wednesday's raid on an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, informed sources
in France. Boulahcen, 26, was a relative of Abaaoud, the sources said. Friends
of her family in their hometown of Aulnay-sous-Bois, on the northeastern
outskirts of Paris, said she had lived there until recently. The Paris prosecutor's
office earlier told news reporters that police were searching the home of the
female suicide bomber's mother there.
A lawyer for
Abaaoud's father told reporters that the father is "relieved" his son
is dead. Attorney Nathalie Gallant said father Omar Abaaoud thinks his son was
a "psychopath" and a "devil," and he felt guilty about his
son's radicalization.
Abaaoud was
linked to at least four foiled terror attacks the spring, French Interior
Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said, and had ties with several other known
jihadists. Abaaoud used social media to try to
recruit Spanish citizens, mostly women, to join ISIS in Syria, Spain's Interior
Minister Jorge Fernandez told Spanish television station, Antena 3 TV.
A captain with Paris police's Research and Investigation Brigade,
which responded to Friday's attack at the Bataclan Theatre, described in an NBC
interview the "hell on Earth" his team encountered there. Upon taking
position at the theater, he said several hundred people lay on the floor.
"Tons of bloods everywhere. No sound. Nobody was screaming ... and a lot
of light because it was like a concert." The people in the auditorium were
lying motionless, he told NBC, " because they were afraid of the
terrorist."
Video released by dailymail.com in
London captures
one of the Paris attacks at a cafe. A gunman sprays the front of the cafe and
its outdoor bistro tables with bullets as glass shatters and patrons scramble
to safety. The gunman approaches a woman near the front door and points an
assault rifle at her. The weapon appears to jam, and the gunman walks off. The
woman and another customer make a run for it.