Jihadi chickened out
Unexploded bomb vest inn Paris trash can
A suicidebomb belt belonging to a terrorist who remains on the lam after the Paris attacks was found on Monday in a garbage can, leading authorities to suspect he abandoned his mission.
The explosivesladen vest was found in the Paris suburb of Montrouge and was believed to have been dumped there by Salah Abdeslam, 20, the most wanted man in Europe and the subject of a continentwide manhunt, the Daily Mail reported.
“The belt was found in a dustbin [trash can], and is said to be very similar to those worn by the Paris terrorists,” a French police source told the paper. “Its detonator had been removed. The area around the dustbin has been sealed off, and bombdisposal experts are in the area. Judicial police are at the scene, together with forensics experts and antiterrorist officers.”
A cellphone was also found near the suicide belt.
Abdeslam, whose brother died in the attacks, fled the capital region in a BMW and was believed headed toward the German border
Meanwhile, Belgium remained on edge, with Brussels on high alert for a third straight day as authorities warned of a continuing “serious and imminent” threat of a terror attack, despite the 22 raids that have netted 21 suspects, a number of whom were released after questioning.
Belgian authorities charged one suspect with terrorism offenses related to the Nov. 13 attacks on a Paris theater, stadium and restaurants, which killed 130 and injured hundreds more.
Subways, shopping centers and schools were shuttered as the work week began, and hundreds of troops.hunted for jihadis, including Abdeslam. Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jam bon told the RTL network that Abdeslam “must have a lot of support on our territory. That's why all these searches being conducted at the moment are important.”
In Paris, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would ask Parliament to approve UK airstrikes against ISIS extremists in Syria.
French President François Hollande is meeting Tuesday with President Obama, then Wednesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Thursday with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in pursuit of a unified strategy in Syria.