A French official says Abdelhamid Abaaoud is the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks. Photo / AP
A French official says Abdelhamid Abaaoud is the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks. Photo / AP
A 29-year-old Belgian now is said to have masterminded the attacks from Syria.
The ringleader of the Paris terrorist attacks has been named by a French official as Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian national already suspected of planning previous attacks in Europe.
Abaaoud, 29, is said to have planned the Paris atrocities from Syria, where he is still thought to be fighting with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
He was the head of a terrorist cell in Verviers which was dismantled by Belgian police last January in a firefight in which two jihadists were killed.
He was sentenced to 20 years in absentia along with 32 other jihadists.
Police believe he helped arrange a terrorist attack on an Amsterdam-to-Paris train on August 21, which was thwarted by four passengers including British businessman Chris Norman. He is also thought to have plotted an attack on a church in Paris.
"He appears to be the brains behind several planned attacks in Europe," a source close to the investigation told Reuters.
Abaaoud is from the same Molenbeek district of Brussels as several of the other suspects in Friday's attack. His father Omar is a grocer there and he is reported to have taken his 13-year-old brother Younes with him to Syria in January 2014.
His family had previously announced that he was dead, but police now think that claim was false.
Abaaoud, 29, is said to have planned the Paris atrocities from Syria. Photo / AP
He has claimed in the Isis English-language magazine Dabiq to have rejoined the group in Syria, and has featured in Isis propaganda videos and their magazine, boasting of how he evaded police.
He is believed to have been in Raqqa in April/June 2014, then Tabka, Deir ez Zor and finally Kobani.
Belgian newspapers have reported that Abaaoud's name appears in several police files alongside Ibrahim Abdeslam, one of the suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Paris last week.
A reporter for French newspaper Liberation claims that Abaaoud was also in contact with the attacker of the train in August, Ayoub El-Khazzani.
At a glance
The victims • 129 people were killed in the brutal attacks • 89 perished during a hostage situation in the Bataclan during an Eagles of Death Metal concert • 352 were injured • 99 were critically injured
The attacks There were seven attacks by at least seven terrorists, it is thought • All seven of the terrorists were wearing suicide vests. • The first attacks happened at 9.20pm, four miles apart. • The third attack happened at the Right Bank area of central Paris, where 15 people were gunned down and killed while they were eating and drinking in restaurants and bars. • At the Casa Nostra pizzeria on Rue de la Fontaine au roi, at least five people were shot and killed. • At least 19 people were killed at an attack in La Belle Equipe bar in Rue de Charonne after the bar was sprayed with bullets at around 9:35pm. • The sixth attack was at the Bataclan at around 9:50pm. The siege lasted two hours and 40 minutes. • Two of the terrorists blew up their explosive belts as police arrived on the scene at around 12:30am. • There was a third blast near the Stade de France - and although it terrified spectators, no one is thought to have been killed during the seventh and final attack.
