Second fugitive sought
Second unnamed suspect sought in France, which steps up bombing in Syria
European authorities widen net in hunt for terror suspects,
PARIS— A dragnet across Europe widened on Tuesday to include a second fugitive suspected to have taken part in the Paris terrorist attacks, as officials tried to make sense of a torrent of emerging intelligence about the planning and execution of the attacks.
The police in France and Belgium continued their pursuit of one fugitive, Salah Abdeslam, 26, a Frenchman believed to have escaped to Brussels, while a French official said Tuesday that the authorities were looking for an accomplice, whose identity remained unclear.
Seven attackers died in the assault on Friday night, but it now appears that at least nine took part in or helped facilitate the attacks.
Some of the attackers, who killed 129 people in a closely co-ordinated series of assaults that lasted three hours, rented a house in a suburb northeast of Paris last week, telling the landlady that they were businessmen from Belgium, according to the French official.
The person suspected of organizing the attacks — a Belgian militant named Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is 28 or 27 — is believed to be in Syria with fellow Islamic State militants, French and U.S. intelligence officials have concluded.
Early Tuesday, 10 French fighter jets, taking off from bases in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, dropped 16 bombs on what the French defence ministry described as an Islamic State command centre and training centre in the group’s self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, Syria. Hours later, Russia also carried out an attack on Raqqa, with cruise missiles and longrange bombers.
France, through its defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, took the extraordinary step Tuesday of invoking a European Union treaty that obliges members to help any mem- ber that is “the victim of armed aggression on its territory.”
French President François Hollande took steps to shore up global support for what he has called a war to annihilate Islamic State. He met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who expressed sympathy but reiterated the Obama administration’s view that the group will not be destroyed until Syria’s embattled president, Bashar Assad, leaves power
Kerry said a ceasefire between Syria’s government and opposition could be just weeks away from reality. The ceasefire envisioned by the political process agreed upon in Vienna on Saturday would exponentially help efforts to fight Islamic State, he said, as well as end the drawn-out Syrian conflict, which has gone on for more than four years.
Saudi Arabia is expected to host a meeting of Syrian opposition figures by mid-December, at which they are to agree on a delegation to send to talks with representatives from Assad’s government. Once those negotiations begin, a ceasefire is to take effect, according to the agreement reached in Vienna.
Hollande will visit Washington and Moscow next week to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament that the Paris attacks had strengthened the case for intervening against Islamic State in Syria, a move that Parliament rejected in 2013.
On France’s third and final day of national mourning, crowds gathered to light candles and lay flowers at the Place de la République and at make- shift memorials at the sites of the attacks. In Toulouse, thousands gathered in the central square, waving French flags and singing “La Marseillaise,” France’s national anthem.
“The terrorists want to erase everything: culture, youth, life, and also history and memory,” Hollande said in a speech at a UNESCO conference in Paris.
“You do not fight against terrorism by hiding, by putting your life on hold, by suspending economic, social and cultural life, by banning concerts, theatre, sports competitions,” he said.
“We will not yield to terrorism by suspending our way of life.”
Many Parisians and visitors followed his advice, flocking to restaurants, cafés and museums in an effort to carry on with normal life. But the country continued to reel from the attacks, the worst violence on French soil in decades. Officials said the bodies of 117 of the 129 people killed had been positively identified; 221 of the 352 people injured remained in hospitals, 57 of them in intensive care.
The country remained under a state of emergency, as developments in the investigation emerged in a steady trickle.
In a chilling indication of the extent to which extremist violence has been a persistent problem, authorities revealed on Tuesday that the voice on a recording that claimed responsibility for the attack, on behalf of the Islamic State, was most likely that of Fabien Clain, a well-known French militant.
Clain, 36, has been linked to a deadly 2012 assault on French soldiers and Jewish civilians in southwestern France and to a foiled terrorist plot on the Parisian suburb of Villejuif in April of this year. Like Abaaoud, he is believed to be in Syria now.
Authorities in Hannover, Germany, abruptly called off a friendly soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had planned to attend to show resolve against terrorism and support for the Paris victims.
Hannover police Chief Volker Kluwe said officials received “a concrete tip that an explosives attack was planned against this international match in the stadium.” A highlevel European security official said the evacuation, which took place shortly before the match was due to begin, was related to the Paris attacks.
The sudden appearance of another possible plot to wreak havoc at a crowded public event underscored the formidable challenge facing European nations as they seek to detect and prevent terrorist attacks.
In Brussels, a soccer match that was scheduled for Tuesday between Belgium and Spain was also cancelled, and many fans expressed worry that the disruptions could threaten the European Cup next year.