Investigations into the attacks by Islamic State that killed 130 people and wounded 351 others in Paris six months ago advanced substantially with the arrest on March 18th of Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the 10-man terrorist cell.
But Abdeslam’s arrest did not prevent the 40-strong Franco-Belgian network of suicide bombers and organisers from striking again four days later in Brussels, where they killed 32 people.
Intelligence and security service failures in the lead-up to the Paris and Brussels attacks continue to come to light, with new details emerging this week in the French media.
The long hunt for Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a friend of Abdeslam who travelled from Syria to Paris to lead the November 13th attacks, is one example of the inability of intelligence services to prevent attacks, though they may accurately identify the threat.
Abaaoud came to the attention of French intelligence in March 2014, when he appeared in an Islamic State video, laughing as he drove a pick-up truck dragging corpses through a field.
In May 2014, Mehdi Nemmouche, a former jailer for Islamic State, which is also known as Isis, killed four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels. He had spoken with Abaaoud by telephone and the latter used a Turkish number.
By mid-2014, Le Parisien newspaper reported in a detailed investigation published yesterday, a dozen intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Mossad, had joined the hunt for Abaaoud. French and international intelligence services, telephone surveillance records and judiciary documents recorded a 20-month race against the clock that culminated in Abaaoud's death in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, five days after the Paris attacks.
Botched attempt
In January 2015, Belgian police raided one of Abaaoud’s “cells” in Verviers which was about to stage an attack. He had a hand in a botched attempt to blow up a French church in April 2015 and in the attack in the Thalys train four months later.
The CIA had located two hideouts used by Abaaoud in Athens. He eluded the French agents from external intelligence service DGSE who went there to arrest him in January 2015. They retrieved a portable Toshiba with plans for an attack on an airport.
The following month, Abaaoud, now chief of external operations for Islamic State, boasted to Dabiq magazine that Allah "blinded" a European immigration officer.
“I was able to leave [Europe] and return to As-Sham [Syria] despite being pursued by so many intelligence agencies.”
On returning from Syria in August 2015, French man Reda Hame told police that Abaaoud had instructed him to "choose an easy target, for example a concert".
The need to stop Abaaoud persuaded French president François Hollande to order the bombing of Raqqa and Deir al-Zor last September 27th, according to Le Parisien.
"We are striking Islamic State in Syria because this terrorist organisation is preparing attacks on France, " prime minister Manuel Valls said then.
However, Abaaoud had returned to Greece when the French bombed his Syrian bases. He is believed to have passed through the Greek island of Leros, opposite Turkey, and exfiltrated the jihadis who would carry out the November 13th attacks. They arrived in Europe on September 20th and October 3rd.
French officials are haunted by their failure to stop Abaaoud.
"We identified him correctly, although he's not French," a high-ranking official at the defence ministry told Le Parisien. "But no one saw him leave Syria or enter Europe."
Defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will testify later this month before the commission of inquiry into November 13th regarding another apparent failure, that of French soldiers on the night of the attacks.
Rescue operation
As reported by L'Obs magazine this week, eight French soldiers from the Sentinelle force were en route to a building they were supposed to protect when they stopped outside the Bataclan concert hall on hearing shooting.
A gunman inside the Bataclan fired on victims who escaped through an emergency exit into a side street. Police from the BAC anti-crime brigade asked the army to authorise its soldiers to provide cover for a rescue operation. The army said no.
According to Jean-Luc Taltavull of the police commissioners syndicate, a policeman made a separate request to a soldier outside the Bataclan to go inside with him.
“‘I don’t have orders to move,’ the soldier said. ‘Then give me your Famas [assault rifle]’,” Taltavull quoted the policeman as saying. “The soldier refused to give up his weapon.”
