French warplanes launch more strikes against IS targets in Syria

A US official briefed on intelligence matters said Abaaoud was a key figure in an Islamic State external operations cell that USA intelligence agencies have been tracking for many months.

A leading Belgian jihadist in Syria who has boasted in videos about planning attacks in Europe and evaded police in his home country is being investigated as a possible mastermind of the Paris attacks, a French source said Monday.

He spoke as France stepped up air strikes in Syria in the wake of killings claimed by Islamic State in the French capital on Friday.

In all, three teams of attackers including seven suicide bombers attacked the national stadium, the concert hall and nearby nightspots.

It has also emerged that one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attack had featured in a previous terrorism investigation but slipped through the net. They were not Germans, police spokesman Werner Schneider said.

The Paris attacks have galvanized worldwide determination to confront the militants.

More than 25 foreigners from over a dozen countries were among the victims, with the first U.S. fatality confirmed as California State University student Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, who died at the Petit Cambodge restaurant.

Late on Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said two Paris-bound Air France flights were diverted following anonymous bomb threats, and hundreds of passengers and crew were safely removed.

Arriving for talks in Brussels, Greek Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos told reporters that the Paris attacks were a game-changer for the bloc.

Hollande, addressing a rare joint session of Parliament in Versailles, requested that lawmakers extend for three months the state of emergency he declared after the attacks Friday night.

In hopes of killing Islamic State organizers and trainees, France overnight launched its heaviest airstrikes yet on the city of Raqqa, the group’s de-facto capital in Syria. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies were sharing intelligence and working closely with France, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief Jens Stoltenberg said.

“We do not coordinate or collaborate in any way with Russian Federation on its activities in Syria”, the official said. IS has positions in Aleppo province, while the Nusra militant group is in Idlib. Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to hunt down those responsible and punish them. IS has also claimed responsibility for that October 31 attack.

Mohamed Abdeslam, another brother of fugitive Salah Abdeslam, on Tuesday urged his brother to turn himself in.

French border police had stopped him Saturday but unwittingly allowed Abdeslam to travel on to Belgium, unaware of an arrest warrant that had been issued in Paris that described him as extremely unsafe.

While Abdeslam remains on the run, Belgian police have arrested the two others. Hamza Attou, 21, says he went along to keep Amri company, his lawyer Carine Couquelet said.

French President Francoise Hollande said on Monday that his country’s constitution must be amended to better deal with national crises.

Abaaoud, this official said, had also been in contact with Ismael Omar Mostefai, one of the Paris attackers.

In neighboring Belgium, police donning balaclavas and assault rifles mounted a tense hours-long standoff outside the suspected hideout of 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, who has been identified as the alleged driver of a rental auto that delivered attackers to the scene of greatest slaughter, a rock concert inside a nightclub in which 89 died.

The groups in Turkey and France had exchanged messages about a terror plot in Istanbul linked to the Paris attacks, the official said.

– Belgium was deploying 300 extra soldiers to help provide security in major cities.

Kerry flew to France as a gesture of solidarity and met Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday. French jets hit an IS command post, a recruitment centre, a munitions depot and a training camp in Raqa, northern Syria, and more raids were reported on Monday.

A senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence services receive such warnings “every day”. One of his brothers, Brahim, was among the attackers who blew themselves up in Paris. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive investigation.