Two People in Belgium Charged in Paris Terrorist Attacks, Official Says

French troops have deployed by the thousands and tourist sites remain shuttered in one of the most visited cities on Earth.

As many as three of the seven suicide bombers who died in the attacks were French citizens, as was at least one of the men arrested in neighbouring Belgium.

The attack had global impact.

Countries around the world doused their national buildings in the French colors of blue, white and red to honor the victims – or, like the Eiffel Tower and New York’s Empire State Building, went dark to express their sorrow.

A terror cell was broken up in the eastern town Verviers outside Liege, a week after the initial Paris attacks.

The terrorist group ISIS (also known as the Islamic State) has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Another was known to French authorities as a potential radicalist and had a criminal history.

Belgian and French officials want to know where Salah Abdeslam is, and Belgium has issued an worldwide warrant for him.

“This element and Abaaoud’s fanaticism in Syria allow us to link him to the attacks”, the source said, warning however that it was still “too early” to make a conclusion.

Hours after the synchronized attacks that terrorized Paris, French police questioned and released 26-year-old Abdeslam, officials told The Associated Press on Sunday.

He said that “the majority of those who were involved in this attack were unknown to our services”.

French authorities are particularly concerned about the threat from hundreds of French Islamic radicals who have traveled to Syria and returned home, possibly with risky skills.

The first to be identified was named as Ismael Omar Mostefai, a 29-year-old who lived in the city of Chartres, southwest of Paris. One of them was reportedly a Frenchman who had rented a auto bearing Belgian license plates that was found near the Bataclan concert hall. It has not yet been officially confirmed that the passport belonged to the suspect. One of his brothers had detonated a suicide vest down the street from the theater; another was ultimately detained in Belgium, officials said.

The discovery of a Syrian passport near the body of one attacker has raised suspicions a few of the assailants might have entered Europe as part of an influx of people fleeing Syrias civil war.

An injured man is escorted by police outside the Bataclan.

Whether the passport is authentic or one of the many fake Syrian passports in circulation is unclear.

Three of the seven killed attackers are believed to be French, two are believed to be Belgians, according to French and Belgian officials.

All these French and Iraqi security and intelligence officials spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation.

French President Francois Hollande says his country “is at war” after three teams of gun-wielding ISIS suicide bombers hit six busy locations.

“The skies have been darkened by the horrific attacks that took place in Paris just a day and a half ago”, U.S. President Barack Obama, in Turkey for a meeting of the G20 group of countries, said Sunday in a joint media appearance with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“We’re doing what is necessary to reduce the risk but we won’t get it down to zero”, says Mr Ducarme.

A third brother, Brahim, died after having set off his explosives-laden suicide belt near a cafe in Paris’ 11th district, investigators said. “The strategy that we are putting forward is the strategy that will ultimately work… but as I said in the beginning, it is going to take time”. “We will do what is necessary to defeat extremism, terrorism and hatred”.

Yet even in their grief, residents were defiant about the lifestyle that has made their city a world treasure. Although Paris was quiet and jittery, Bas meant to go out for a drink – “to show that they won’t win”.

Abaaoud had been implicated in the planning of a number of terrorist attacks and conspiracies in Western Europe before the Paris attacks.

Poland incoming government declared Saturday it would not accept refugees without security guarantees but Juncker urged them “to be serious about this, and not to give in (to) these basic reactions”.

Now Belgian fighter Abdelhamid Abaaoud, based in Syria, is being described as the brains behind the attacks. The militant group also said it bombed a Russian plane that crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on October 31, killing 224 people.