France, Belgium widen probe into Paris attacks
An investigation into the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris widened on November 24 when French prosecutors said a man who provided lodging to the suspected ringleader must have known of a terrorist plot, and Belgium issued a warrant for a new suspect.
Painting a chilling picture of ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Paris prosecutor said that after dropping off the gunmen and suicide bombers at the cafes and bars where the attacks were to take place he had later returned to the scene while the killing spree was in full swing.
The coordinated attacks, in which 130 people were killed, prompted France to declare a national state of emergency and to step up air strikes in Syria on Islamic State, the militant group which has claimed responsibility.
President Francois Hollande, who is trying to rally global support for the military campaign against Islamic State, won the support of US President Barack Obama on November 24 during a whistlestop visit to Washington.
In Paris, prosecutor Francois Molins said Islamist militants who died during a shootout with police on Nov. 18 had been plotting an attack on the capital's business district. Reuters exclusively reported the plot to attack the district of La Defense on November 18.
Molins said he had put under formal investigation a Frenchman who had provided lodging for Abaaoud and his associates at the apartment in the suburb of St. Denis targeted in the shootout.
"Jawad Bendaoud himself welcomed the terrorists on Nov. 17 towards 22.45 pm. He could not have been in any doubt ... that he was taking part in a terrorist organization," Molins told a news conference.
Bendaoud said before he was detained by police on Nov. 18 that he had been asked to put up two people for three days in the apartment, but that he had no idea one of them may have been the suspected mastermind of the Nov. 13 attacks.