PARIS, Nov. 17 (UPI) — Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind behind the Islamic State Paris attacks, was reportedly targeted in U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in October, a security official said.
Abaaoud, 27, is believed to be the link between senior IS leadership and the militant group’s operatives in Europe. He allegedly escaped from Belgium to Syria after a failed attack on the Belgian city of Verviers in January, The New York Times reported, citing a European security official.
Airstrikes carried out by the U.S.-led coalition targeted Abaaoud in the IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, though he escaped.
Abaaoud, who allegedly joined the terror group — also identified as Daesh, ISIS and ISIL — in 2014, is believed to have close links to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
French officials believe Abaaoud was the one who planned a series of coordinated attacks on multiple sites in Paris on Friday. At least 129 people were killed and nearly 100 were critically injured.
Security authorities conducted 128 raids overnight Tuesday throughout France and about 115,000 police officers and service members were on patrol throughout France, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told France Info radio.
Officials believe at least 10 people, including seven suicide bombers, were directly involved in the Paris attacks.Two suspects were arrested in Belgium — Brussels native Hamza Attou, 21, and Mohamed Amri, 27, who was born in Morocco — and officials were hunting down Salah Abdeslam, 26, a French national born in Brussels suspected of being a gunman in the Paris attacks.
Attou and Amri were charged with participation in a terrorist activity or connection. A manhunt was conducted Monday for Abdeslam in Molenbeek, a Brussels district, which was allegedly used by Abaaoud as a base of operations.
Abdeslam’s brother, Mohamed Abdeslam, was arrested as part of security operations in Belgium but was released because he had an alibi for Friday.
“I was not tied in any way to anything that happened,” Mohamed Abdeslam said in a statement. “We don’t know where he is, whether he has the courage to turn himself in.”
Ibrahim Abdeslam, brother of Mohamed and Salah, died during the Paris attacks after detonating his suicide bomb device.
President Francois Hollande on Monday called for a change to France’s constitution that will allow the nation to go after the Islamic State in what he said amounts to all-out war against the terror group.
On Tuesday, the European Union invoked an article in its Lisbon Treaty that formally commits the members of the EU to support France — stating: “If a member state is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other member states shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.”
Meanwhile, France continued to launch airstrikes against IS positions, including Raqqa. The French Defense Ministry said it used 10 fighter jets from bases in Jordan and from the Persian Gulf to drop 16 bombs in the early morning, effectively destroying an Islamic State command center and training center.
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