Page 17 - min.jus 16 nov,2015
P. 17
U.S. NEWS A3
Monday 16 November 2015
At Press Time;
France bombs Islamic State HQ, hunts attacker who got away
GREG KELLER told the AP that France and
other countries had been
PHILIPPE SOTTO warned on Thursday of an
imminent attack.
Associated Press An Iraqi intelligence dis-
patch warned that Islamic
PARIS (AP) State group leader Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi had or-
— France launched “mas- dered his followers to im-
mediately launch gun and
sive” air strikes on the Is- bomb attacks and take
hostages inside the coun-
lamic State group’s de- tries of the coalition fight-
ing them in Iraq and Syria.
facto capital in Syria Sun- The Iraqi dispatch, which
was obtained by the AP,
day night, destroying a provided no details on
when or where the attack
jihadi training camp and would take place, and a
senior French security offi-
a munitions dump in the cial told the AP that French
intelligence gets these
city of Raqqa, where Iraqi kinds of warnings “all the
time” and “every day.”
intelligence officials say However, Iraqi intelligence
officials told the AP that they
the attacks on Paris were also warned France about
specific details: Among
planned. them, that the attack-
ers were trained for this
Twelve aircraft including 10 operation and sent back
to France from Raqqa, the
fighter jets dropped a total Islamic State’s de-facto
capital.
of 20 bombs in the biggest The officials also said that a
sleeper cell in France then
air strikes since Franceex- met with the attackers
after their training and
tended its bombing cam- helped them to execute
the plan. There were 24
paign against the extrem- people involved in the
operation, they said: 19
ist group to Syria in Sep- attackers and five others People gather for a national service for the victims of the terror attack at Notre Dame cathedral
in charge of logistics and
tember, a Defense Ministry planning. in Paris, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015. Thousands of French troops deployed around Paris on Sunday
None of these details have
statement said. The jets been corroborated by of- and tourist sites stood shuttered in one of the most visited cities on Earth while investigators
ficials of France or other
launched from sites in Jor- Western intelligence agen- questioned the relatives of a suspected suicide bomber involved in the country’s deadliest
cies.
dan and the Persian Gulf, All these French and Iraqi violence since World War II. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)
security and intelligence
in coordination with U.S. officials spoke with the AP claimed responsi- ers, another French secu- neighborhood of Brussells,
on condition of anonymity, rity official said. A Brussels which authorities consider
forces. citing the ongoing investi- bility. Its statement parking ticket found inside to be a focal point for ex-
gation. led police to at least one tremists and fighters going
Meanwhile, as police an- Abdeslam is one of three mocked France’s air at- of the arrests in Belgium, a to Syria from Belgium.
brothers believed to be in- French police official said. Belgian Interior Minister
nounced seven arrests and volved; One who crossed tacks on suspected IS tar- Three Kalashnikovs were Jan Jambon, speaking to
with him into Belgium was found inside another car The Associated Press by
hunted for more members later arrested, and another gets in Syria and Iraq, and known to have been used phone, said suspects ar-
blew himself up inside the in the attacks that was rested in Molenbeek had
of the sleeper cell that car- Bataclan theater after tak- called Paris “the capital of found in Montreuil, an been stopped previously
ing the audience hostage eastern Parisian suburb, in Cambrai, France, “in a
ried out the Paris attacks and firing on them repeat- prostitution and obscen- another a French police regular roadside check”
edly. It was the worst of official said. but that police had had
that killed 129 people, Friday’s synchronized at- ity.” As many as three of the no suspicion about them
tacks, leaving 89 fatalities seven suicide bombers at the time and they were
French officials revealed and hundreds of people In all, three teams of at- were French citizens, as let go quickly.
wounded inside. was at least one of the men
to The Associated Press The Islamic State group tackers including seven arrested in the Molenbeek Continued on Page 27
that several key suspects suicide bombers attacked
had been stopped and re- the national stadium, the
leased by police after the concert hall and nearby
attack. nightspots. The attacks
The arrest warrant for Salah wounded 350 people, 99
Abdeslam, a 26-year-old of them seriously.
born in Brussels, calls him Abdeslam rented the
very dangerous and warns black Volkswagen Polo
people not to intervene if used by the hostage-tak-
they see him.
Yet police already had
him in their grasp early Sat-
urday, when they stopped
a car carrying three men
near the Belgian border.
By then, hours had passed
since authorities identified
Abdeslam as the renter of
a Volkswagen Polo that
carried hostage takers to
the Paris theater where so
many died.
Three French police of-
ficials and a top French
security official confirmed
that officers let Abdeslam
go after checking his ID.
They spoke on condition of
anonymity, lacking autho-
rization to publicly disclose
such details.
Tantalizing clues about the
extent of the plot have French police patrol at the place de la Republique in Paris, France, Sunday Nov. 15, 2015, two
days after over 120 people were killed in a series of shooting and explosions.
emerged from Baghdad,
(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
where senior Iraqi officials
