France seeks European Union security aid, launches new airstrikes on IS

Police also sought Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old Belgium resident, who is suspected in one of the attacks.

French President Francois Hollande, left, welcomes U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry upon arrival at the Elysee Palace in Paris Tuesday.

Hollande said the amendments are necessary so the state doesn’t have to “resort to the state of emergency” to deal with terror threats.

Residents of the Paris suburb said they had been caught in a terrifying exchange of fire.

Abdelhamid Abaoud, 27, lived in the Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels, as did two of the attackers, and is now believed to be based in Syria, where he has risen through the IS ranks.

The younger brother of Brahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up in Friday’s attacks, was stopped in their auto on September 9 “and said that he wanted to spend a week’s holiday in Austria”, the interior ministry said.

French air force jets have killed at least 33 militants associated with Islamic State group in two major assaults in Syria following the deadly Paris attacks, said media reports on Wednesday.

French warplanes targeted a command center and a recruitment center for jihadists in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in the second consecutive night of strikes ordered by Hollande, a military command spokesman told Reuters.

French prosecutors have so far identified four Frenchmen among the dead assailants and a fifth man who was fingerprinted among refugees in Greece last month. It invoked an article of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty that has never been used, which states nations must provide assistance when one of its members falls victim to “armed aggression”.

The council worker said: “We didn’t know”.

Believed to be close to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he was linked to a plan to attack Belgian police that was thwarted in January.

Investigators are also reported to be focusing on a Belgian of Moroccan descent who is described as the possible mastermind of the attacks.

On Monday, French President Francois Hollande called on the US and Russian Federation to forge a relationship in the fight against IS, and create a “single coalition” to “fight this terrorist army”. Martins said he got him released, and by the time the case came to court in 2010, his client had turned his life around and the judge let him go.