Border checks tightened in wake of Paris attacks

Salah Abdeslam, the fugitive terrorist who fled after last week’s Paris massacre, fears he’s being hunted by ISIS – the group responsible for the slaughter – because he didn’t blow himself up like his fellow suicide belt-clad attackers.

In a statement tonight, the prosecutor’s office said “the person that was arrested yesterday has been charged by the investigating judge with participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organisation, and placed into custody”.

At the United Nations in NY, meanwhile, France is pushing for what is in effect a security council declaration of war against Isis, with a resolution calling on members to “take all necessary measures” to defeat the terror group in the wake of the Paris attacks.

The alleged ringleader of the attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud was also confirmed to have died in Wednesday’s raid.

Concerns about Europe’s porous borders prompted interior and justice ministers meeting in Brussels on Friday to promise tightened border controls to make it easier to track the movements of jihadis with European passports traveling to and from warzones in Syria.

As an increasingly detailed picture emerges of a network of European-born jihadists with ties to Syria, investigators are working around the clock to find Salah Abdeslam, an eighth gunman who is still on the run.

The apartment block in the northern Paris district of Saint-Denis, near the Stade de France national stadium, was severely damaged as elite RAID police rained 5000 rounds of ammunition on it and lobbed in grenades after a tipoff that Abaaoud was there.

“We can’t take more time; this is urgent”, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

The king of Morocco was on a visit to France on Thursday.

Referring to Brussels’ alert level, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said then authorities’ prime objective is to reduce the number of large events in order to free up police officers to secure Brussels.

The interior ministers also agreed to temporarily tighten checks at Schengen’s external borders in the meantime.

France called today on its European Union partners to take immediate and decisive action to toughen the bloc’s borders and prevent the entry of more violent extremists.

Investigators are still trying to identify the remains of the third person in the flat, as well as two men who came through Greece in October and blew themselves up outside the stadium while the French soccer team was playing Germany.

Authorities initially gave Abaaoud’s age as 27, but on Thursday Paris prosecutors said he was 28.

According to Reuters, police were originally tracking the female militant in an investigation surrounding drugs, but later used the phone number they were tracing to pinpoint Abaaoud. News of his death seemed to ease a few tension in a country deeply shocked by the attacks.

According to President François Hollande of France, the Paris terrorist attacks had been planned in Syria, which he described as “the biggest factory of terrorists the world has ever known”.

Islamic State (IS) said it was behind the attacks – the worst in Europe since the 2004 Madrid bombings.