A tip-off from Moroccan intelligence services helped French police locate the suspected architect of last Friday's atrocities in Paris. Abdelhamid Abaaoud (28), a Belgian, was killed along with two others in a seven-hour firefight with police in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis on Wednesday.
French authorities had thought Abaaoud was in Syria, where he had become one of Islamic State's most high-profile European recruits, but Moroccan officials informed them in recent days that Abaaoud was in France.
Police then focused on Hasna Aitboulahcen (26), a woman with links to him whom they were already trailing as part of a separate drugs investigation. By tracing her phone they were able to track her down to Saint-Denis, where they watched her bring Abaaoud into the run-down flat on rue du Corbillon on Tuesday evening. Police stormed the building at 4.20am the next morning.
It also emerged on Friday that Abaaoud had been identified on CCTV footage recorded at a suburban metro station while the killings were in progress in central Paris last Friday. He was seen at the Croix de Chavaux station in Montreuil, not far from where one of the cars used in the attacks was found.
Abaaoud’s own family has disowned him, accusing him of abducting his 13-year-old brother, who was later promoted on the internet as Islamic State’s youngest foreign fighter in Syria. Moroccan authorities arrested another of his brothers, Yassine, last month after he arrived in Agadir and has been held in custody since.
As a massive police crackdown on suspected radicals continued across France, a Bill to extend the state of emergency until February and give the police sweeping new powers was approved almost unanimously by the upper house. In the past week police have used the state of emergency decree to enter 793 premises across France. They have held 90 people for questioning, put 164 under house arrest and recovered 174 weapons including assault rifles and other guns, the interior ministry said. A rocket launcher was found at an address in Lyon.
Among the premises searched yesterday was a mosque in Brest, in western France. Its imam, Rachid Abou Houdeyfa, who has strongly condemned the Paris attacks, achieved notoriety earlier this year after telling children they could be turned into pigs for listening to music. Police found no evidence of anything illegal.
Police said they had identified all three suicide bombers who blew themselves up at the Stade de France last Friday, killing one passerby. One had a Syrian passport, which police believe may have been a fake, and was recorded entering Greece on October 3rd. He sought asylum in Serbia before going to a camp in Croatia and then on to Hungary. The second bomber was logged crossing into Greece at the same time.
The third stadium bomber was Bilal Hadfi (20), a French national who had been living in Belgium. Hadfi had gone to Syria in late 2014. Seven attackers died in the co-ordinated attacks but police believe an eighth member of the gang, Salah Abdeslam, is still on the run.
