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| Europe |
| Police hunt suspect as seven others are held in Belgium |
| 2015-11-16 |
| French authorities have said seven suicide attackers died in Friday’s carnage and are hunting another believed to be “directly involved” in the bloodshed. Belgian authorities have arrested seven other men in connection with the attacks. Only one of the dead attackers, and one wanted man, have been officially named, but details are starting to emerge about others suspected of involvement. Among them is a trio of brothers - one dead, one arrested and one on the run. 1. Omar Ismaïl Mostefai was the first attacker named by French authorities. The 29-year-old is of Algerian heritage and grew up in Courcouronnes, just south of Paris, where he picked up a criminal record for petty offences. He was identified by prints taken from a severed finger found in the Bataclan concert hall, where he detonated his explosives belt. French intelligence took note of Mostafei when he began spending time at a mosque with radical links in 2010, but they lost track of him in 2013, when he may have travelled to Syria, the Washington Post reported. His brother said they had not spoken for years, but he is still being questioned by police along with six others, including Mostefai’s father and sister-in-law. 2. Salah Abdeslam. Police have put out a wanted poster for the 26-year-old. Salah is thought to have rented the black Volkswagen Polo used by the group that attacked the Bataclan concert hall, the Associated Press reported. He was born and lived in Belgium. 3. Salah’s brother Ibrahim Abdeslam was identified by prosecutors as the man who rented a Seat vehicle used in the attacks. He carried out the suicide attack at the Comptoir Voltaire cafe. He was 31. 4. A third Abdeslam brother, who has not been named, is believed to have been among seven people arrested on Saturday in the Molenbeek-Saint-Jean district of Brussels, suspected of being connected to the attacks. 5. Another attacker who lived in Belgium was named by the Washington Post as Bilal Hadfi. He is thought to have fought for Islamic State in Syria, the paper said, but did not give his nationality. 6. A Syrian passport for a 25-year-old called Ahmed Almohamed was found near the site of one of the bombings. It was registered by a refugee who landed on a Greek island on 7 October, but French authorities have not said if that man’s fingerprints match any of the attackers’ remains. 7. A second Stade de France attacker was identified by prosecutors as another Frenchman who lived in Brussels. Few details have been revealed about him, other than that he was just 20 years old. 8. There are no details as yet on other dead attackers. Seven men have been detained in Brussels over the weekend in connection with the attacks. |
| Posted by:Steve White |