Paris attacks: global manhunt for terror suspect, 150 raids across France

The French president, schoolchildren, bystanders have held a minute of silence to honor the 129 people killed in the country’s worst attacks in decades.

French radio station RTL described Abaaoud as “one of the most active (Islamic State) executioners” in Syria. He later was featured in an ISIS propaganda magazine, claiming to have returned to Syria. French Prosecutor say that Paris attacks had links to a Belgian Islamic State militant believed to be the mastermind of a jihadist cell dismantled in January.

A French official said the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks was also linked to thwarted train and church attacks. “Investigators see a link with Verviers”, it said, referring to an eastern Belgian town where police shot dead two militants in January and broke up a cell aiming to kill Belgian police officers in the streets days after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

The discovery of a suspected abandoned getaway auto in Montreuil, east of Paris yesterday, fueled suspicion that at least one suspect had escaped, as per reports.

Abdeslam rented the black Volkswagen Polo used by the hostage-takers.

Homegrown terrorist Omar Ismaël Mostefai, 29, from Courcouronnes, Paris, was one the first terrorist to be identified after his severed finger was found at the Bataclan Theatre where 89 died.

The Peace for Paris illustration, a painting featuring the iconic Eiffel Tower nestled within a peace sign, went viral following the terror attacks in the French city that took more that 100 lives.

Another suicide bomber was named as 20-year-old Bilal Hadfi, one of three who attacked the Stade de France.

A senior Turkish official says authorities flagged one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks to their French counterparts back in 2014 but received no response.

“We try to have a clear vision of the networks, and try to eradicate that”, Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders told reporters in Brussels on Monday.

A police standoff Monday in the Molenbeek suburb of Brussels, Belgium, ended with one arrest but did not apprehend Abdeslam, the Belgium Federal Justice Department told a state news agency.

Refugees fleeing war by the tens of thousands fear the Paris attacks could prompt Europe to close its doors, especially after police said a Syrian passport found next to one attacker’s body suggested its owner passed through Greece into the European Union and on through Macedonia and Serbia last month. The fingerprints of the passport holder taken by Greek authorities match those of the terrorist who blew himself up at the Stade de France, the senator said.