The ringleader of the Paris
attacks last month appears to have directed the three terrorists inside the Bataclan
theater by phone from a few blocks away, according to a French terrorism
expert. And, a witness has told French investigators that they saw Abdelhamid
Abaaoud standing in a doorway yelling into his phone for about an hour.
That night, the witness had
several times gone to a car parked nearby, and Abaaoud had been there every
time. They described the man as very agitated. When the witness later walked
past him, they were able to see his face. Abaaoud's head was shaved and he was
wearing layers of loose clothing, but when photographs were later published in
the media the witness immediately recognized him and alerted the authorities.
Ringleader was planning more
attacks
The witness account was disclosed
by French terrorism analyst Jean Charles Brisard in the latest edition of the
Combating Terrorism Center's journal Sentinel.
Brisard writes that "the
presence of Abaaoud in the immediate vicinity of the attacks provides an
indication of his degree of implication in the supervision and control of the
plot, and suggests he was giving direct orders and instructions to his team
inside the Bataclan."
Earlier in the evening, according
to the Paris prosecutor Abaaoud's phone records show he was communicating with
Bilal Hadfi, one of the stadium bombers, right until the moment the three
suicide bombers at the Stade de France started blowing themselves up.
Earlier that same evening --
November 13 -- Abaaoud was detected on surveillance cameras at a metro station
just a few hundred yards away from where one of the terrorists' cars had been
abandoned. He then appears to have returned to the scene of the attacks,
according to the Paris prosecutor, after analysis of his cell phone signal.
Paris terror attacks fast facts
The prosecutor, Francois Molins,
told a news conference on November 24 that Abaaoud's phone was geo-located in
the vicinity of the attacks between 10:28pm and 12:28am that night, inlcuding
in proximity to the Bataclan before the attack was over.
Abaaoud had previously appeared
in videos produced by ISIS, and the group claimed responsibility for the Paris
attacks the day after they occurred.
He was killed five days later
when police raided an apartment in the Paris district of St. Denis, along with
a female cousin and a man who has not been identified. According to French
investigators, Abaaoud was planning another wave of attacks in the business
district of Paris known as La Defense and had also talked about attacks on
public transportation, schools and "Jewish targets."
The ISIS "French
contingent"
The investigation into the Paris
attacks has uncovered that at least eight of those involved in the plot were
French nationals who had been to Syria -- a worrying sign for European
intelligence services. Several had been based in Molenbeek -- a suburb of
Brussels that has been the base for previous jihadist plots. Abaaoud himself was
Belgian and had grown up in the Molenbeek area.
According to Brisard, most of
those involved in the plot re-entered Europe in August.
Salah Abdeslam, who drove three
of the suicide bombers to the Stade de France, is still being sought. There has
been no sighting of him since hours after the attacks, when he was stopped on
the Belgium border, but let go because investigators had not yet connected him
to the attacks.
According to Brisard, Abdeslam
and Abaaoud are believed to have planned and co-ordinated the attacks. Abdeslam
had made several trips between the French and Belgian capitals in September and
October, and he had also traveled to Italy, Hungary and Austria.
Paris attacks: 'I would have
killed him,' Bataclan bomber's father says
Brisard reports that
investigators have established that the weapons used in the attacks were bought
online or through criminal networks, Brisard says.
The Paris attacks have focused
attention on the substantial French contingent within ISIS. The statement
claiming responsibility was read by one of them -- Fabien Clain -- who is now
thought to be a senior figure within ISIS according to Brisard. The terrorism
expert writes that Clain's name "had been associated with a 2009 plot
against the Bataclan" theater.
Clain was also a friend of the
family of Mohammed Merah who carried out a series of gun attacks in the
Toulouse area in 2012.
Other individuals of interest to
French investigators are Salim Benghalem and Boubaker el-Hakim, who are both
believed to be senior ISIS operatives based in Syria.
Buildup of European plots
"alarming"
There are more French citizens
and residents among foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq than of any other
European nation according to Brisard.
"More than 2,000 French
citizens and residents are involved in Syrian and Iraqi jihadi networks. Among
them, 600 are believed to be fighting alongside terrorist organizations abroad
and 250 are believed to have returned," he says.
Abaaoud was focused on using this
contingent -- and Belgian jihadists who had returned -- to hit European
targets. A plot similar to the Paris attacks was foiled in January in Verviers,
in eastern Belgium, when authorities raided a safe house, setting off a
gun-fight in which two alleged terrorists were killed. Abaaoud had been in
contact with that group by cell phone from Greece, according to investigators.
In August a returning French
foreign fighter told investigators he had attended a training camp for a week
in Raqqa, ISIS' headquarters in Syria, before being told by Abaaoud to launch
an attack. The chosen target was a concert hall. "Abaaoud had provided him
a USB stick containing encryption software and 2,000 euros," writes
Brisard.
The accumulation of ISIS-directed
European plots this year is alarming for European governments, Brisard says. He
writes that the Paris attacks "demonstrated major failures in European
border control policy and the exchange of information between European Union
member states."
"The fact that most of the
perpetrators and facilitators of the attacks were able to travel and slip
undetected into the heart of Europe, and then travel back and forth between
Belgium and France to prepare the attacks raises significant concerns"
about European security agencies' abilities to detect plots, Brisard adds.
Complete coverage of Paris
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