After Paris attacks, fugitive slipped through police dragnet

Hours after the synchronised attacks that terrorised Paris, French police questioned and released the suspect who is now the focus of an international manhunt, officials have said.

Saleh Abdelslam, 26, was one of three men in a getaway car, headed for France’s border with Belgium, when police pulled them over after daybreak Saturday. The French president had already announced new border controls to prevent the perpetrators from escaping.

Hours had passed since investigators identified Abdelslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage—takers to the Paris theater where almost three-quarters of the 129 victims were killed.

It’s not clear why the local French police, known as gendarmes, didn’t take Abdelslam into custody. They checked his identification, but it's not known whether they had been informed of his apparent connection to the attacks.

“It was a simple check. There was no lookout notice at the time of the traffic stop,” a French police official told the AP yesterday.

Asked whether Abdelslam’s name had been shared over police networks by then, the official simply said: “I have no explanation.”

It may not have been the only missed opportunity before and after France’s deadliest extremist attack since World War II.

The day before the attacks, senior Iraqi intelligence officials warned France and other members of the US—led coalition fighting the Islamic State that assaults by the militant group could be imminent, according to a dispatch obtained by the AP.

Abu Bakr al—Baghdadi, the group’s leader, had ordered supporters to use guns and bombs and take hostages in the days ahead in coalition countries as well as Iran and Russia, Thursday’s dispatch said.

The dispatch did not say where or when the attacks might take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets this kind of communication “all the time” and “every day.”

But Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP that they also shared specific details with French authorities before the attack including the size of a sleeper cell of militants they said was directing attackers sent back to France from Islamic State’s de—facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.

These additional details were not corroborated by French or Western security officials. But one US official said yesterday that the evident weaponry skill displayed by the attackers suggests that they might have received training somewhere.

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A turning point for France: Paris Deputy Mayor

It is the third day after the terrorist attacks in Paris in which over a hundred people were killed and scores injured. How would you assess the popular and official response to the crisis?

At the popular level, I would say that the people have reacted with dignity and strength. Even on Saturday people were out on the streets saying life will go on and we are not afraid. The people of Paris are even stronger than I knew them to be, so it is a really good feeling I have about that. At the level of the government, both at the national and the municipality level, we can be really proud of how the security forces, the police and all the people in the hospitals were really good and ready to react. We have to see the political reactions now.

Could you be more specific in your answer, especially as France is now under a state of emergency. Do you think that will change life as people know it because they will have to be constantly vigilant?

I definitely think the events are a turning point in France. It was not just a terror attack, but an act of war, so definitely things are going to change. We will need more security, but [we] must also find a balance between maintaining normal life and individual liberty, and security needs. This is going to be organised in the next few days in discussions between the City of Paris and the national government, but I am really optimistic that everything will be fruitful and for the best for people here.

Do you fear that the aim of the Daish, which is to sow differences among people, might be realized?

Actually, right now I think that they have totally failed. I have seen my country and my city really united this weekend, whatever peoples religion or place of origin. I am much more afraid about what bad politicians can do with that event [ie, the attacks] if they try to strengthen [deepen] differences between people.

Do you think that the parties of the right could get oxygen from this event?

We are going to be running for election in December so we will see at that time. They are trying to play with that event to get some more votes. I [would] just say that the people who are going to be voting should know that this is no solution. The far right are interested in dividing French society, they have no vision for our society, and we have to stick together whoever we are and wherever we come from.

You are a member of the Green Party. Do you think that COP21 will be held ?

It is very important that we don’t cancel this really important meeting for the planet and the communities of the world. Anyway, the meeting will need security and right now the state is preparing to make it happen. And again with the new security measures questions will be raised about whether we will have the 29 November march. Right now we don’t know if it is going to be held. We need some more days to think and discuss about it.

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One attacker identified, rifles found in getaway car

On Sunday morning at the Place de la Republique, two days after a series ofcoordinated bomb attacks killed over 120 people in Paris, a large crowd of Parisians mill around the famous statue of Marianne, the embodiment of French republicanism.

The diverse gathering, which includes people of all ages and colors, is silent and grave as people pay tribute to those who died in the attacks at a hastily created memorial at the base of the statue.

Parisians are on the streets in a show of defiance and national resilience on a day of national mourning. The response to the attacks have been remarkably sober and mature, and certainly nothing close to what the perpetrators of the crimes would have hoped for. There has been no overt anti-Muslim backlash in the public sphere, whether on the streets or in the media, and but for the far-right of the political spectrum, political parties have called for restraint and unity.

The French police have identified one of the seven attackers as a 29-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin from the suburbs of Paris with a criminal record and who had traveled to Syria in 2013 and 2014.

Six of his relatives have been detained. He was one of the attackers at the Bataclan, where the worst carnage took place leaving 89 people, including several in wheelchairs, dead.

It is now known that 129 people died, with the numbers of injured now 352, of whom 99 are in a critical condition. Those who died were mainly the young enjoying the start of the weekend.

“The dead are mostly the young, and they died for nothing,” said Christopher Fernando, a mourner at the Place de la Republique.

Two of the cars used by the suspects have been found. A black Polo VW was found outside the Bataclan, and parking tickets in the car led the police team to the French citizen who is a resident of Belgium and who had hired the car from a highly radicalized suburb of Brussels.

He was arrested on the Franco-Belgian border as he was returning home after the attacks with two others. The police are yet to disclose the identities of these three persons. A cache of AK 47 rifles was found in a second car, a black SEAT sedan, in the suburb of Montreuil.

Terrorists wanted to divide France

The intent of the coordinated terror attacks in Paris on Friday night was clearly to deepen religious and political divisions within France, the media quoted prosecutors as saying.

One of the dead terrorists had carefully placed a Syrian passport in his pocket in an obvious attempt to drive popular hostility against Syrian refugees who have been entering Europe, fleeing from the civil unrest in Syria.

The attacks are believed to have been launched in retaliation for French military involvement in Syria and Iraq.

‘Well-coordinated attacks’

The media quoted officials as saying that the well-coordinated attacks were planned and executed by a cross-country team with links to Syria and West Asia, Belgium, Germany and France.

“We must now see what measures President Hollande puts in place,” said Aurelien Mondon, an expert on French politics from the University of Bath.

“Terrorism seeks to divide and unfortunately these attacks will create fertile soil for that. The media and French politicians must be very careful not to target sections who are already discriminated against.”

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