France, Belgium swoop on terror suspects

17 November 2015 - 09:40 By Reuters, AFP

France and Belgium staged dozens of raids on suspected extremists yesterday as Paris struggled back to its feet and the prime minister steeled the nation for more bloodshed. A traumatised France stopped for a minute's silence at midday to honour at least 129 people killed in the unprecedented terrorist assault on Paris nightspots and the national stadium.Thousands paused in the streets and President François Hollande observed the silence at Sorbonne University, in recognition of the large number of young victims.Investigators identified two more attackers, including a Frenchman previously charged with planning a terror attack and a suicide bomber found with a Syrian passport, although the document's authenticity has yet to be verified.Police conducted "several dozen" raids across France, while Belgian police launched a new operation in a radical hot spot where some of the attackers are thought to have lived.In the southeastern French city of Lyon, police found "an arsenal of weapons", including a rocket launcher and Kalashnikov assault rifle.More than 100 people had been placed under house arrest, 23 arrested and 31 weapons seized, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.The Paris attacks were probably ordered by a Belgian living in Syria and carried out by a group led by Belgium-based French nationals with an accomplice who might have used a refugee route via Greece.With at least one of the group still on the run, French prosecutors say they have identified five of the seven who died in the suicide attacks on Paris bars, a concert hall and a soccer stadium.Four were French, while the fifth man was stopped and fingerprinted in Greece in October and might have been Syrian.Belgian police were hunting for Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old Frenchman based in a suburb of Brussels. Police suspect he rented the black VW Polo car used during the shootings. He was registered crossing into Belgium at the weekend in a VW Golf, which was later found in Brussels.Abdeslam is one of at least two brothers believed to have been involved in the plan who managed to cross the border after the attacks.Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian national currently in Syria, was suspected of having ordered the operation, a source close to the investigation said."He appears to be the brains behind several planned attacks in Europe," the source told Reuters.The international reach of the network prompted French minister Cazeneuve to call for an urgent European Union meeting to assess what new security measures the bloc needs to counter such threats."The abject attack was prepared overseas, mobilised a team based on Belgian territory and benefited from support in France," he said.Police named two of the dead French attackers as Ismail Omar Mostefai, a 29-year-old of Algerian descent from Chartres, southwest of Paris, and Samy Amimour, 28, from the Paris suburb of Drancy.Amimour had been under police surveillance, but had slipped away to Syria at some point after 2013. Le Monde quoted his father in 2014 saying he had gone to the Syrian border to try and bring him back.Mostefai is one of seven militants who died in the slaughter, blowing himself up at the Bataclan concert hall, the bloodiest of Friday's attacks. His profile is typical of French jihadists - a period of petty crime before he became quickly radicalised and withdrew from the social circle he had been part of.The other assailants who died in the attacks are Syrian Ahmad al Mohammad, Abdeslam's brother Ibrahim, 31, and Bilal Hadfi, 20, from France. ..

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