France
Searches For Second Fugitive Suspect In Paris Attacks
German
official says Syrian passport may have been used as a false flag to
stir fear of refugees.
AP/The Huffington
Post
Posted: 11/17/2015
11:41 AM EST |
PARIS (AP) —
French police are hunting for a second fugitive directly involved in
the deadly Paris attacks, officials said Tuesday after France made an
unprecedented demand that its European Union allies support its
military action against the Islamic State group.
Surveillance video
obtained by The Associated Press indicates a team of three attackers
carried out the shootings at a Paris sidewalk cafe, leading police to
believe that a second assailant is on the loose.
Video footage shows
two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons calmly firing on the
bar, then returning slowly toward a waiting car, whose driver was
maneuvering behind them.
Officials previously
had not specified how many people were involved in the attack on the
sidewalk bar on La Fontaine au Roi street.
Three French
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to comment on the investigation, confirmed that an
analysis of the series of attacks on Friday indicated that one
additional person directly involved in the assault remains
unaccounted for.
In Germany, Interior
Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in Berlin that a Syrian
passport found with one of the Paris attackers with the name Ahmad al
Mohammad may have been a false flag intended to make Europeans
fearful of refugees. The passport showed registrations in Greece,
Serbia and Croatia, which he described as "unusual."
He said the multiple
registrations by a person using the passport were "evidence that
this was a trail that was intentionally laid, but it can't be ruled
out at the moment that this was an IS terrorist who came to France
... via Germany as a refugee.”
Reuters reported on
Wednesday that the man carrying the passport may have traveled with a
companion from Turkey to Europe.
The disclosure of a
second possible fugitive came on the same day that France launched
new airstrikes on the militants' stronghold in Syria; as Vladimir
Putin ordered a Russian military cruiser to cooperate with French on
fighting IS in Syria and as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hinted
at a possible upcoming cease-fire in Syria that would let nations
focus on fighting IS.
French and Belgian
police were already looking for key suspect Salah Abdeslam, 26, whose
suicide-bomber brother Brahim died in the attacks Friday night that
killed at least 129 people and left over 350 wounded in Paris.
Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for the carnage.
FRENCH NATIONAL
POLICE
A friendly soccer
game between Germany and the Netherlands in Hanover, Germany, was
canceled on short notice Tuesday after a suspicious object was
discovered at the stadium.
Everyone inside had
to be evacuated, policeman Joerg Hoffmeister told the AP.
Announcements at the stadium asked visitors to go home in a calm
manner and said there was no danger to fear.
No immediate reason
was given for the cancellation, but news agency dpa reported that
there had been a threat of an "impending attack that had to be
taken seriously." Earlier, the streets leading to the stadium
had been blocked due to a bomb threat outside the stadium.
A German official
said no explosives were found and no arrests were made in Hanover,
according to Reuters.
Seven attackers died
Friday night -- three around the national stadium, three inside the
Bataclan concert hall, and one at a restaurant nearby. A team of
gunmen also opened fire at nightspots in one of Paris' trendiest
neighborhoods.
A cell phone with a
map of the music venue that was attacked and a text message with
words to the effect of "let's go" was found in a dustbin
near the Bataclan concert hall, Reuters reported, citing CNN and
French website Mediapart.
The Paris attacks
have galvanized international determination to confront the
militants.
The French
government invoked a never-before-used article of the EU's Lisbon
Treaty obliging members of the 28-nation bloc to give "aid and
assistance by all the means in their power" to a member country
that is "the victim of armed aggression on its territory."
French Defense
Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said all 27 of France's EU partners
responded positively.
"Every country
said: I am going to assist, I am going to help," Drian said.
Arriving for talks
in Brussels, Greek Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos told
reporters that the Paris attacks were a game-changer for the bloc.
"This is Sept. 11 for Europe," he said.
Paris police said 16
people had been arrested in the region in relation to the deadly
attacks, and police have carried out 104 raids since a state of
emergency was declared Saturday.
French military
spokesman Col. Gilles Jaron said the latest airstrikes in the Islamic
State group's de-facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa destroyed
a command post and training camp. NATO allies were sharing
intelligence and working closely with France, NATO chief Jens
Stoltenberg said.
In Moscow, Putin
ordered the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, currently in the
Mediterranean, to start cooperating with the French military on
operations in Syria. His order came as Russia's defense minister said
its warplanes fired cruise missiles on militant positions in Syria's
Idlib and Aleppo provinces. IS has positions in Aleppo province,
while the Nusra militant group is in Idlib.
Moscow has vowed to
hunt down those responsible for blowing up a Russian passenger plane
over Egypt last month, killing 224 people, mostly Russian tourists.
IS has also claimed responsibility for that Oct. 31 attack.
In this Nov. 1,
2015, file photo provided by Russian Emergency Situations Ministry,
Egyptian Military on cars approach a plane's tail at the wreckage of
a passenger jet bound for St. Petersburg in Russia that crashed in
Hassana, Egypt.
Seven of the Paris
attackers died Friday -- six after detonating suicide belts and a
seventh from police gunfire -- but Iraqi intelligence officials told
The Associated Press that their sources indicated 19 people had
participated in the Paris attacks and five others had provided
hands-on logistical support.
Mohamed Abdeslam,
another brother of fugitive Salah Abdeslam, on Tuesday urged his
brother to turn himself in. Mohamed, who was arrested and questioned
following the attack before being released Monday, told French TV BFM
that his brother was devout but showed no signs of being a radical
Islamist. He said Salah prayed and attended a mosque occasionally,
but also dressed in jeans and pullovers.
Two men arrested in
Belgium, meanwhile, admitted driving to France to pick up Salah
Abdeslam early Saturday, their lawyers said.
Mohammed Amri, 27,
denies any involvement in the Paris attacks and says he went to Paris
to collect his friend Salah, according to his defense lawyer Xavier
Carrette. Hamza Attou, 21, says he went along to keep Amri company,
his lawyer Carine Couquelet said. Both are being held on charges of
terrorist murder and conspiracy.
Belgian media
reported that Amri and Attou were being investigated as potential
suppliers of the suicide bombs used in the attacks, since ammonium
nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used to make explosives, was
discovered in a search of their residence.
Their defense
lawyers said they could not confirm those reports.
Salah and Brahim
Abdeslam booked a hotel in the southeastern Paris suburb of
Alfortville and rented a house in the northeastern suburb of Bobigny
several days before the attacks, a French judicial official told The
Associated Press. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was
not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation.
Austria's Interior
Ministry said Salah Abdeslam, the suspected driver of one group of
gunmen carrying out attacks on Paris, entered the country about two
months ago with two companions that were not identified. After the
attacks, Salah Abdeslam slipped through France's fingers, with French
police accidentally permitting him to cross into Belgium on Saturday.
Seven people who
were arrested near the Western German city of Aachen -- and who did
not appear to have a direct link to the Paris attacks -- have been
released. Authorities had acted on a tip that one of those arrested
may be a key suspect, according to German Interior Minister Thomas de
Maiziere. "Sadly it's not the man that everyone hoped it would
be," he said.
Another Belgian car
with a shattered front passenger window was found Tuesday in northern
Paris -- the third vehicle police identified as having possible links
to the attacks. Belgian media reported several kalashnikovs were
found in the car.
Kerry flew to France
as a gesture of solidarity and met Hollande and Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius on Tuesday.
A picture taken on
Nov. 17, 2015, shows a general view of the Appart'City hotel in
Alfortville, where two rooms were rented the day before the attacks
in Paris under the credit card of Salah Abdeslam, according to police
sources.
A cease-fire between
Syria's government and the opposition -- which would allow nations
supporting Syria's various factions to focus more on IS -- could be
just weeks away, Kerry said, describing it as potentially a "gigantic
step" toward deeper international cooperation.
Standing next to
Hollande at the Elysee Palace, Kerry said the carnage in the French
capital, along with recent attacks in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, made
it clear that more pressure must be brought to bear on Islamic State
extremists.
A French security
official said anti-terror intelligence officials had identified
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the chief
architect of the Paris attacks.
The official cited
chatter from IS figures that Abaaoud had recommended a concert as an
ideal target for inflicting maximum casualties, as well as electronic
communications between Abaaoud and one of the Paris attackers who
blew himself up. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to
discuss the sensitive investigation.
It was not exactly
clear where Abaaoud is.
French Interior
Minister Bernard Cazeneuve conceded that "the majority of those
who were involved in this attack (in Paris) were unknown to our
services."
In Paris, the Eiffel
Tower shut down again Tuesday, after opening for just a day, and
heavily armed troops patrolled the courtyard of the Louvre Museum.
In a show of
solidarity, British Prime Minister David Cameron was to join Prince
William at a friendly soccer match Tuesday night between England and
France in London's Wembley Stadium. Armed police were patrolling the
site and British fans, in a show of solidarity, were being encouraged
to sing the French national anthem as well.
Associated Press
writers Matthew Lee and Jill Lawless in Paris, and Raf Casert and
Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
This post has been
updated to note the cancellation of a soccer game Tuesday.
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