Dozens linked to European terror ring

Paris, Brussels attacked by same ‘supercell’ of extremism

PARIS — The number of people linked to the Islamic State network that attacked Paris and Brussels reaches easily into the dozens, with new arrests over the weekend confirming the cell’s toxic reach and ability to move around unnoticed in Europe’s criminal underworld.

From Belgium’s Molenbeek to Sweden’s Malmo, new names are added nearly daily to the list of hardened attackers, hangers-on and tacit supporters of the cell that killed 130 people in Paris and 32 in Brussels. A computer abandoned by one of the Brussels suicide bombers in a trash can contained not only his will, but is beginning to give up other information as well, including an audio file indicating the cell was getting its orders directly from a French-speaking extremist in Syria, a police official said.

Ten men are known to be directly involved in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris; others with key logistical roles then plotted the attack March 22 in Brussels. But unlike Paris, at least two people who survived the Brussels attack have been taken into custody alive, including Mohamed Abrini, the Molenbeek native who walked away from the Brussels international airport after his explosives failed to detonate.

But investigators fear it may not be enough to stave off another attack. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, another Molenbeek native who joined IS extremists in Syria, said before his death that he returned to Europe among a group of 90 fighters from Europe and the Mideast, according to testimony from a woman who tipped police to his location.

Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer who is now with the Soufan Group security consultancy, described the Brussels-Paris network as a “supercell.”

“The hope was that they had died out in the Paris attacks, and obviously that’s not true,” Skinner said. Normally, Skinner said, an extremist cell has six to 10 people linked by pre-existing ties.

“You’re not sending an informant into this group, because they know each other. So no one new is just walking into this,” he said. “It’s so big, look at the people on the periphery, logistics, the people that are suspected. You’re looking at 50 people. That’s not a cell; that’s a terrorist group.”