French official names alleged ‘mastermind’ of Paris attacks

He stressed that while implementing emergency state since the attacks, 150 raids have been conducted across France. As many as 129 people were killed and more than 200 were injured in the dastardly attack on 13 November.

Jean-Pascal Thoreau, a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor, said Abdeslam is one of two brothers suspected of involvement in the attacks.

Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism advisor to the White House and now an ABC News consultant, said the new unit reflected ISIS’s new focus on “complicated, commanded and controlled multi-actor” attacks, as opposed to earlier ISIS-linked attacks in the West, which were typically carried out by so-called lone wolves who were simply “inspired” by ISIS to violence. ISIS propaganda magazine Abaaoud, whose parents are Moroccan immigrants, emerged in recent years as Belgium’s most notorious jihadist, a zealot so devoted to the cause of holy war that he recruited his 13-year-old brother to join him in Syria. The official said that on October 10, 2014, Turkey received an information request regarding four terror suspects from the French authorities, but not for Mostefai even though he had been identified by Turkey as a potential terror suspect.

The French citizen living in Belgium allegedly hired a black Polo, registered in Belgium, which was found near the Bataclan concert venue in Paris, where three attackers killed 89 people.

One, identified by the print on a recovered finger, was 29-year-old Frenchman Ismael Mostefai, who had a record of petty crime and had been flagged in 2010 for ties to Islamic radicalism, the Paris prosecutor said. He was linked to a plan to attack Belgian police that was thwarted in January.

French investigators are pursuing an global trail that stretches across Europe – and one concern for security services in other countries is how far Islamic State has already put in place the ability to replicate the Paris attacks.

Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said: “This is just the beginning”.

The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks has been identified, as authorities mounted a massive security operation amid growing questions about how the terrorists evaded detection.

Another planned attack involving Abaaoud against a church in Paris’ suburbs was also stopped.

Another suicide bomber found outside the soccer stadium had the passport of Ahmad Al Mohammed, 25, of Idlib, Syria.

French police had released a photo of Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old born in Brussels, who is on the run and too risky for anyone outside law enforcement to engage directly.

These details stoked fears of homegrown terrorism in France, which has exported more jihadis than any other in Europe, and seen many return from the fight.

French warplanes pounded the Islamic State (IS) group’s de facto Syrian capital Raqa, destroying a command post and a training camp, the defence ministry said.

Police sources told Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press that video confirmed the existence of a ninth Paris attacker.