SYRIA — Abdelhamid Abaaoud has been identified as the suspect French authorities believe masterminded the attacks in Paris last weekend.
Abaaoud, in his late 20s, reportedly once lived Molenbeek, a poor suburb of Brussels, Belgium before fleeing Europe to join ISIS in Syria in 2013 or 2014. In an interview with an IS online magazine, Abaaoud once claimed that he had helped set up a safe house with two other jihadists in Belgium before fleeing Europe following a series of raids. He has since been linked to a number of terror attacks and plots, including an assault on a high speed train in August.
Video footage dating back to 2014 shows Abaaoud driving a pickup truck that is dragging corpses across a field in Syria. He also reportedly recruited his 13-year-old brother to join ISIS.
NPR reports that Abaaoud was ordered by Salim Benghalem, a French national, to carry out last weekend's attacks in Paris. Both men are thought to currently be in Syria.
The attacks in Paris killed 129 people and wounded more than 300 last Friday, according to French media and NPR. French President Francois Hollande has declared the country "at war" with ISIS, and has proposed new laws and more spending on public safety to combat terrorism, but not at the expense of the country's freedom.
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