Manhunt for Paris attacker who got away

Fugitive Abdeslam Salah is one of three brothers from Belgium who carried out shootings and bombings that killed 132.

French soldiers guard the Sacre-Coeur cathedral in Paris on November 15, 2015. David Ramos / Getty Images

PARIS // An international manhunt was under way yesterday for one of the ISIL terrorist gang who attacked Paris.

French police issued a photo of Abdeslam Salah, 26, from Brussels in Belgium, and said he was on the run and too dangerous for the public to intervene if they saw him.

Abdeslam is one of three brothers police believe took part in the wave of bombings and shootings: one was arrested in Belgium and another died during the attacks.

The terrorists killed 129 people at six locations on Friday night, and injured 352, 99 of them critically. Three more victims died yesterday from their injuries. Dozens of people were shot dead as they sat at cafe and restaurant terraces and 89 were killed at a rock concert at the Bataclan theatre.

Abdeslam rented the black Volkswagen Polo used by the killers who attacked the Bataclan. The other car used in the attacks, a black Seat Leon, was found abandoned at Montreuil on the eastern outskirts of Paris, with three Kalashnikov AK47 rifles inside.

Investigators made three arrests in Belgium and detained for questioning six relatives and acquaintances of Omar Ismail Mostefai, 30, a French national who died at the Bataclan and is the first of the seven dead attackers to be identified.

Belgian prosecutors said yesterday that two of the terrorists were French nationals who lived in Brussels, and that the two cars used in the attacks were rented in the Belgian capital at the beginning of last week.

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France was in its second day of mourning yesterday, with special religious services and floral tributes that turned each scene of slaughter into a shrine in honour of the victims.

The country remains in the state of emergency declared by the president, Francois Hollande, with tougher border supervision and a major security presence on the streets and at public buildings.

Seven attackers are known to have died during the attacks in the 10th and 11th arrondissements of Paris and at the Stade de France, the country’s biggest sports stadium, in the northern suburb of St Denis.

As the huge manhunt continued in France and Belgium, it was clear that investigators believe several more terrorists may remain at large. Admitting the attack, ISIL referred to “eight brothers wearing explosive vests and assault rifles”. Initially it was thought that all eight had been killed, but the Paris public prosecutor Francois Molins said later that only seven were dead.

As well as the “eighth man”, police want to find those who helped the killers to plan, fund and carry out the wave of bombings and shootings.

Mr Molins said: “We can say at this stage of the investigation there were probably three coordinated teams of terrorists behind this barbaric act. We have to find out where they came from … and how they were financed.”

The father, an elder brother and sister-in-law of Omar Ismail Mostefai, who authorities say was known to hold extremist views, are among those being questioned.

The brother, who presented himself to police on Saturday, said he had not had contact with Mostefai for several years following family disagreements. “It’s crazy, insane. I was in Paris myself … I saw what a mess it was,” he said.

The family home is in the town of Courcouronnes, 26 kilometres to the south of the centre of Paris, though Mostefai is reported to have lived in Chartres, a city 90 kilometres south-west of the capital, until 2012. According to the brother, who expressed surprise at Mostefai’s radicalisation, he has also spent time in Algeria. Mr Molins said he had a history of petty crime but had never been imprisoned.

Belgium has also become a key focus of the investigation. The three men arrested in Brussels on Saturday had been stopped and checked the same day at a Franco-Belgian crossing as part of new border controls.

A higher proportion of Belgian nationals have been fighting for ISIL and similar groups in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere than from any European country.

A Belgian historian, Pieter Van Ostaeyen, has estimated that the figure has reached 502, or one in about 1,300 of the country’s Muslim population, though the numbers have slowed this year.

Jan Jambon, the Belgian federal home affairs minister, says the country is a “weak link” in Europe’s struggle against terrorism and expressed alarm at the way extremists have been able to use modern technology to plan atrocities and avoid detection.

“The thing that keeps me awake at night is the guy behind his computer, looking for messages from ISIL and other hate preachers,” he said.

Mr Jambon described the growing use by terror networks of the PlayStation 4 console, enabling their communications to escape the scrutiny of the authorities.

“PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp,” he said.

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After the Paris attacks, and first reports of possible Belgian connections, he criticised the failure of municipal and regional officials – notably in the Brussels district of Molenbeek where arrests were made at the weekend – to tackle radicalisation. He promised the government would take matters into its own hands with a “root and branch” response.

Greek officials have said a Syrian passport found near the scene of the one of the blasts at the Stade de France had been used by someone who presented himself as an asylum-seeking refugee last month.

Serbia says the same passport was used by a man crossing into its territory a few days later, though it is not known whether its holder was a terrorist posing as a refugee or an innocent migrant whose document was later stolen.

The number of dead on Friday night might have been significantly higher but for the actions of a Muslim steward who stopped a suicide bomber entering the Stade de France, where 80,000 spectators were watching a football match between France and Germany.

The steward, called only Zouheir, said the man had a ticket for the match, which was by then already under way. When the steward began to frisk him he backed away, and a few minutes later he blew himself up in the first of three suicide bombings outside the stadium.

Zouheir said that had the bomb had gone off inside the ground, it might have caused a “deadly stampede” in addition to casualties from the blast. Another of the bombers is also reported to have tried to enter the stadium while a third waited at a nearby railway station to which spectators would have rushed in the event of an incident.

The reports indicate a clear attempt by the terrorists to carry out suicide bombings inside the stadium, which would not only have caused more carnage, but would have been seen live on TV by millions of viewers.