What We Know About the Accused Terror Ringleader
- Paris killings claimed 129 lives, injured more than 300
- Hollande calls for united front against Islamic State
A French official has identified the organizer of the Paris attacks as Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, pictured.
Source: TwitterFrench investigators think they know who masterminded the deadliest terrorist assault in peacetime France: Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 20-something Belgian who joined the ranks of the Islamic State a few years ago.
The son of a Moroccan shopkeeper, familiar to the intelligence community for his high-profile presence on social media, Abaaoud is being studied by investigators as the man who orchestrated the seven attacks in the Paris area on Friday that left at least 129 people dead and hundreds more wounded, the prosecutor’s office said. Abaaoud, who Le Monde newspaper says is 28, is also linked by French officials to a failed assault on a Paris-bound high-speed train in August and a plot to attack a church in the city in April.