|
 Painting a chilling picture of ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the
Paris prosecutor said that after dropping off the gunmen and suicide
bombers at the cafes and bars where the attacks were to take place,
he later returned to the scene while the killing spree was in full
swing.
The coordinated attacks, in which 130 people were killed, prompted
France to declare a national state of emergency and to step up air
strikes in Syria on Islamic State, the militant group that has
claimed responsibility.
President Francois Hollande, seeking to rally global support for the
military campaign against Islamic State, met with U.S. President
Barack Obama at the White House on Tuesday where they agreed to
scale up operations against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
At a joint news conference, Hollande said he and Obama shared a
"relentless determination to fight terrorism anywhere and
everywhere."
In Paris, prosecutor Francois Molins said Islamist militants who
died during a shootout with police on Nov. 18 had been plotting an
attack on the capital's business district. Reuters exclusively
reported the plot to attack the district of La Defense on Nov. 18.
Molins said he had put under formal investigation a Frenchman who
had provided lodging for Abaaoud and his associates at the apartment
in the suburb of St. Denis.
"Jawad Bendaoud himself welcomed the terrorists on Nov. 17 towards
10:45 p.m. He could not have been in any doubt ... that he was
taking part in a terrorist organisation," Molins told a news
conference.
Bendaoud said that before he was detained by police last Wednesday
he had been asked to put up two people for three days in the
apartment, but had no idea one of them may have been the suspected
mastermind of the Nov. 13 attacks.
Abaaoud died during the police raid along with Hasna Aitboulahcen, a
woman believed to be his cousin, and an as yet unidentified third
person.
BRUSSELS LOCKDOWN
French investigators are still piecing together exactly who did what
when and have launched a hunt to find Salah Abdeslam, who is
suspected of being the eighth attacker mentioned by Islamic State
when it claimed responsibility.
Abdeslam, 26, fled to Belgium the day after the shootings and his
presumed presence in Brussels was one of the factors behind a
security lockdown in the city over the past few days.
Fearing an imminent Paris-style attack, Belgium has extended a
maximum security alert in Brussels until next Monday. About half the
stations on its metro system will reopen on Wednesday along with
city schools, but 300 additional police officers and 200 soldiers
will be deployed.
 Belgium has been at the heart of investigations into the attacks
since France said two of the suicide bombers in Paris had lived
there. Five people, including two who travelled with Abdeslam back
to Brussels, have been charged with terrorist offences in Belgium.
Abdeslam's brother, Brahim, blew himself up.
Belgium's state prosecutor, in a statement announcing details of
other people charged in the case, said on Tuesday it had issued an
international arrest warrant for Mohamed Abrini, who was seen with
Abdeslam two days before the attacks.
Abrini, 30, was filmed with Abdeslam at a fuel station in northern
France on Nov. 11 and was driving the Renault Clio car later used by
the attackers in the French capital.
A police wanted poster described Abrini as "dangerous and probably
armed".
While major shopping centres in Brussels remained closed on Tuesday,
two Ikea furniture stores on the edge of town reopened, along with
some of the larger supermarkets in the city.
[to top of second column] |
The Magritte museum remained shut, however, and Brussels had yet to
decide whether to open its Christmas market on Friday in the
historic Grand Place, where workers have set up stalls with an
armoured personnel carrier in the background.
"We are at the time of year when we are supposed to have a lot of
people, and increase business," said Brussels toy shop worker
Laeticia Shalaj. "People are scared and are afraid of leaving their
homes."
Since the Paris killings, France has moved its flagship Charles de
Gaulle aircraft carrier into the eastern Mediterranean to step up
its bombardments of Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq.
France said late on Tuesday its warplanes had destroyed an Islamic
State command centre at Tal Afar, some 45 km (28 miles) west of
Mosul in Iraq.
After talks with Hollande at the White House, Obama said: "We are
here today to declare that the United States and France stand united
in total solidarity to deliver justice to these terrorists and those
who sent them and to defend our nations."
As millions of Americans prepare to travel for the U.S. Thanksgiving
holiday on Thursday, Obama acknowledged fear among Americans of a
Paris-style attack in the United States.
The White House said Obama was set to meet on Wednesday morning with
his national security advisers to review the "homeland security
posture" of the United States after the Paris attacks and "as we
enter the holiday season.
"The president was briefed that there is currently no specific,
credible threat to the homeland" from Islamic State, the White House
said.
Hollande is due to visit Moscow on Thursday, where he and Russian
President Vladimir Putin are expected to discuss ways of boosting
their campaign to crush Islamic State.
EXPLOSIVE BELT?
Tracing Abdeslam's movements since the attacks has been a main focus
of the investigations in Paris. An explosive belt was found dumped
near the capital on Monday, close to a location where his mobile
phone was detected the night after the attacks, the prosecutor said.
Molins said the belt was similar to those used by the bombers during
the Nov. 13 attacks, although it was still being established on
Tuesday whether the belt was Abdeslam's.
One theory was that Abdeslam had intended to blow himself up in the
18th district of Paris but had abandoned the plan, although it was
not clear why.
(Additional reporting by Chine Labbe, David Clarke and Myriam Rivet
in Paris, John Irish and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Miranda
Alexander-Webber and Alastair MacDonald in Brussels and Julie
Rimbert in Toulouse; Writing by Gareth Jones and Peter Cooney;
Editing by David Stamp and Sandra Maler)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
