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PARIS ATTACKS

French investigators name ‘coordinator of Paris attacks’

French investigators probing last November's terror attacks in Paris have told AFP a man named Oussama Atar was the individual coordinating the Paris terror attacks.

Published: 8 November 2016 12:51 CET
French investigators name 'coordinator of Paris attacks'
Photo: AFP

French investigators have identified a Syria-based extremist of dual Belgian and Moroccan nationality as a suspected
coordinator of attacks in Paris and Brussels, sources close to the case told AFP on Tuesday.

Oussama Atar, a 32-year-old thought to be a member of the Islamic State group, was already a suspect in the Brussels attacks on March 22 but has now been linked to the November 13, 2015 atrocities in Paris.

“He's the only coordinator from Syria to have been identified during the investigations,” one of the sources told AFP.

Another source told L'Express newspaper however that it “was not 100 percent certain that Atar was the man who gave the orders, but “he was one of the names they were working on”.

The newspaper's source described Atar “as a coordinator rather than a commander” who provided logistical support and money from his base in Syria.

Atar, believed to go by the pseudonym Abou Ahmad, is a cousin of the El Bakraoui brothers who blew themselves up in the Brussels airport and Metro attacks.

The names of other jihadists have emerged over the last year as being likely ringleaders of the Paris attacks from Abdelhamid Abaaoud who was killed in a raid in Saint-Denis in the days after the attacks to Frenchman Fabien Clain and Salim Benghalem.

However investigators have never officially named anyone.

France is gearing up to mark this weekend the anniversary of the Paris attacks, that left 130 dead.

The Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people died during a show attacked by three gunmen, is set to reopen on Saturday with a gig by Sting.

French President Francois Hollande will lead low-key commemorations on Sunday in the presence of survivors and family members of the dead.

 

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TERRORISM

Paris attacks suspect Abdeslam refuses to talk at Belgian trial

The only surviving suspect in the 2015 Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, refused to answer questions on Monday as he went on trial in Brussels over a bloody shootout with police that led to his capture.

Published: 5 February 2018 09:54 CET
Paris attacks suspect Abdeslam refuses to talk at Belgian trial
Belgian police officers stand guard prior to the opening of the trial of prime suspect in the November 2015 Paris attacks Salah Abdeslam at the "Palais de Justice". Photo: AFP
Tight security surrounded the start of the trial of the 28-year-old, who was transferred overnight from a jail near the French capital Paris and arriving in Belgium in a convoy of police vehicles.
 
The 28-year-old, once Europe's most wanted man, left a jail near the French capital in the middle of the night in a convoy of tactical police vehicles with blue lights flashing.
   
The Belgian-born French national of Moroccan descent faces charges of attempted terrorist murder of police officers and carrying banned weapons over a gunbattle in the Forest district of Brussels on March 15, 2016.
   
Three police officers were wounded and a jihadist was killed in the fight, which came as Abdeslam was on the run four months after the Paris attacks. He was captured three days later.
   
Hundreds of Belgian security forces turned the Palais de Justice court building in Brussels into a virtual fortress while a helicopter with searchlights circled overhead as he arrived.
   
“This must remain an ordinary trial,” said Luc Hennart, who presides over the court. “If there is the slightest problem I will order the courtroom to be evacuated.”
   
Abdeslam and the man arrested with him, Tunisian national Sofiane Ayari, 24, could serve up to 40 years in prison if convicted.
 
Photo: AFP
 
'Important for victims'
 
The non-jury trial is the prelude to a later one in France and prosecutors hope the Brussels trial will yield clues not only about the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris but also the suicide bombings months later in Brussels.
   
Abdeslam has refused point-blank to speak to investigators throughout the nearly two years since his arrest, which capped a four-month hunt for Europe's most wanted man.
   
But he has insisted on attending the Brussels trial, where three judges are to lead proceedings for four days, raising the question of whether he will use it to break his silence.
   
Hennart insisted that the trial would only focus on the shootout, saying: “That is what we will talk about, we will not talk about either the Brussels or Paris attacks.”
   
Tight secrecy surrounded the plans for transferring Abdeslam from Fleury-Merogis prison in the Parisian suburbs, and then back to a prison just across the border in northern France every night.
   
Two separate convoys left Fleury-Merogis in the middle of the night with an escort of elite French officers with blue lights flashing, while a third group of unmarked vehicles left shortly afterwards.
   
Pot-smoking delinquent to key Paris attacks suspect: The story of Salah Abdeslam
Photo: AFP
 
The boyish former bar owner has spent nearly 20 months in isolation under 24-hour video surveillance at Fleury-Merogis, after being transferred to France after his arrest.
 
At the Brussels court journalists and officials all had to pass through security checks. A police sniffer dog checked the austere courtroom itself, into which journalists were banned from taking phones and computers.
 
Shot in the leg
 
Investigators believe Abdeslam's capture three days after the shootout caused members of his jihadist cell to bring forward plans for the attacks in Brussels.
   
Suicide attacks on March 22, 2016, killed 32 people at Brussels airport and a metro station near the EU headquarters.
   
The same cell is believed to have been behind both the Paris and Brussels attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State group.
 
Police say Abdeslam and Ayari were holed up at the Forest flat when it was raided by French and Belgian police in a routine operation after the Paris attacks.
 
A third suspect, 33-year-old Algerian Mohamed Belkaid, died while providing covering fire for their escape through a back door.
   
Police say they found Abdeslam's fingerprints in the flat, confirming they were on the trail of the last suspect in the rifle and bomb attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, bars, restaurants and the national stadium in the French capital on November 13, 2015.
 
Abdeslam is reported to have disposed of a suicide belt before fleeing. He is also suspected of being the driver in the attacks, in which his brother Brahim was one of the suicide bombers.
 
Armed officers shot in the leg and captured him and Ayari just yards from Abdeslam's home in Molenbeek, a gritty Brussels immigrant neighbourhood.
   
Ayari entered Europe in September 2015 via the Greek island of Lesbos at the height of a migration crisis gripping the continent, and was one of dozen suspected jihadists ferried around Europe by Abdeslam.