Paris attacks: Police name Islamic terror mastermind, arrest dozens

French police investigating the Paris terrorist attacks have named the man they believe was the mastermind.

He is Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, a Belgian national, who is believed to be in Syria.

Abaaoud is from the Molenbeek suburb of Brussels, home to other members of the militant Islamist cell that carried out the attacks that killed 132 people and injured hundreds more.

In other developments:

• Police raided dozens of terror suspects across France overnight. They are looking for Abdeslam Salah, 26, the only one of eight attackers who survived;
• Five of the seven attackers who died have been identified – four of them French citizens and one believed to be a Syrian refugee;
• French President François Hollande promised more spending on security and repeated his demand for three months of emergency powers;
• 10 French warplanes, acting in part on US intelligence, bombed a command centre and other Islamic State facilities, including a fuel depot; and
• Islamic State warned in a new video that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria would suffer the same fate as France. It also threatened to attack Washington DC.

Abaaoud had been involved in a series of planned attacks in Belgium foiled by the police last January.

At the time, Belgian police in the town of Verviers killed two men who opened fire on them during one of about a dozen raids against an Islamist group that federal prosecutors said was about to launch "terrorist attacks on a grand scale."

In a rare joint session of parliament in Versailles, Mr Hollande called for a global effort to destroy Islamic State’s base of operations, which “have become the biggest terrorist factory the world has ever known.”

He said he would travel to meet US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days to discuss action against the group.

At a G20 summit in Turkey, world leaders promised tighter co-operation in the wake of the attacks.

Mr Obama said the US and France had made a new agreement on intelligence sharing but said US military advisers thought sending ground troops to combat Isis would be a mistake.

The French bombing attacks were among a series of strikes on Islamic State locations by US and allied forces.

One destroyed 116 fuel trucks near the Iraqi border, while others struck fighting positions and explosives caches, the Combined Joint Task Force says.

The Islamic State video begins with news footage of the aftermath of Friday night’s shootings.

The message was delivered by a man dressed in fatigues and a turban. He was identified in subtitles as Al Ghareeb the Algerian.

"We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God (Allah), you will have a day, God willing, like France's and by God, as we struck France in the centre of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its centre in Washington," he said.

Paris returns to normal
Normal life is returning to Paris after three days of national mourning, though under heightened security, with armed soldiers patrolling landmarks and streets.

Many sites and tourist attractions in Paris remained closed on Monday but are due to open on Tuesday: Versailles, municipal museums, the Luxembourg Gardens and Tuileries Gardens, Bateaux Parisiens, the Zoo de Vincennes, Aquarium de Paris.

All public gatherings have been banned and in the inner suburbs until midday on Thursday.

Transport: SNCF national and international trains are running as normal. All metro lines are operating as normal: Only the Oberkampf metro station (lines 5 and 9) is closed to the public, as a security measure. At airports and the Gare du Nord (Eurostar), there are longer delays due to police checks.

Tourist office: The information points of the official Paris tourist office are open at the usual times. The Paris Rendez-vous information point, situated at the City Hall, will reopen on Thursday, November 19. Further details are here.

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