PARIS — French officials say they are seeking a second fugitive directly involved in the Paris attacks.
Three officials, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide details about the ongoing investigation, said Tuesday that an analysis of the series of attacks on Nov. 13 indicated that one person directly involved was unaccounted for.
Seven attackers died that night — three around the national stadium, three inside the Bataclan concert venue, and one at a restaurant nearby. A team of gunmen also opened fire at a series of nightspots in one of Paris’ trendiest neighborhoods.
French and Belgian authorities have issued a warrant for one person, Salah Abdeslam, whose brother was among the attackers. The officials say the second fugitive has not been identified.
Also on Tuesday, investigators in Paris had recovered multiple cell phones believed to belong to one or more of the attackers, a possible big break that could help unravel the plot and the suspected network behind it, counterterrorism and intelligence officials told CNN. According to the officials, the phone contained a message, sent sometime before the attacks began, to the effect of: “OK, we’re ready.”
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1:15 a.m.
House members emerging from a closed-door briefing by top U.S. security officials say they were told that some of the Paris attackers were known to American intelligence.
One lawmaker said that of the attackers who have been identified all but one were on a U.S. no-fly list. The legislator did not know how many of the attackers’ identities have been established.
This lawmaker also said that since last Friday’s attacks, intelligence officials have added another name of a terrorist associated with the attacks to the no-fly list.
The legislators spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal information that was discussed at a classified briefing.
Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, wouldn’t discuss what was said in the briefing. But he said he understands that some of the terrorists who conducted the attacks were known to U.S. officials.
Individuals on the no-fly list, enforced by the Transportation Security Administration, are banned from boarding an American airline or any flight that enters U.S. territory or U.S. airspace.
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1:30 a.m. Wednesday
Surveillance video obtained by The Associated Press indicates a team of three attackers carried out the shootings at a Paris sidewalk cafe, leading police to believe that a second assailant is on the loose.
Previously officials had not specified how many people were involved in the attack on the sidewalk bar on La Fontaine au Roi street.
Surveillance video of the shooting shows two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons calmly firing on the bar, then returning slowly toward a waiting car, whose driver was maneuvering behind them.
Three French officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the investigation, confirmed that an analysis of the series of attacks on Friday indicated that one additional person directly involved in the assault remains unaccounted for.
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11:15 p.m.
The chairman of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee says there’s a “strong likelihood” that the Parisattacks were directed, rather than just inspired, by the Islamic State group in Syria.
Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, also said Tuesday it was likely the attack plotters in Syria, Belgium and France used encryption to hide their communications from authorities. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, endorsed Burr’s comments. The two spoke to reporters after a classified intelligence briefing.
The comments were the strongest public attribution yet by American officials. CIA director John Brennan said Monday that the attacks in Paris bore “the hallmarks of terrorism carried out” by the Islamic State.
Burr says the Islamic State group has a presence in 30 countries and poses a threat that is harder to handle than the one posed by al-Qaida.
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9:35 p.m.
French police are circulating a photo of one of the suicide attackers who targeted the French national stadium in Paris last week and asking for information from anyone who recognizes him.
National police published a photo of the suicide bomber on its twitter account Tuesday. A total of seven attackers died in the Nov. 13 rampage, but only five have been publicly identified so far.
The man in the photo was previously identified as Ahmad Al-Mohammad. Police found a Syrian passport next to his body, which had a photo identifying him as such, and his fingerprints matched someone with the same name who entered Greece as a refugee in October. However, it is believed that this is a fake name, so now police are working to officially identify him.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks that left 129 dead and over 350 wounded Friday night in Paris.
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9:25 p.m.
Brahim Abdeslam, 31, a suicide bomber who blew himself up outside a Paris cafe on Friday, did a short prison term in Belgium for stealing official identity cards.
His former defense lawyer, Olivier Martins, told The Associated Press the cards “sell for a lot of money to people who want to remain on Belgian territory.”
Abdeslam, a French citizen, was arrested in 2003, admitted to stealing and reselling 10 or so of the cards and spent a month in prison. Martins said he got him released, and by the time the case came to court in 2010, his client had turned his life around and the judge let him go.
Abdeslam had opened a small restaurant and “appeared to be on the right road.” But Martins sensed problems. He says Abdeslam was “a kind, courteous, polite person … who was very, very fragile and very easily influenced.”
An international manhunt is on for Abdeslam’s brother Salah, 26, who is also believed linked to the deadly Paris attacks.
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6:45 p.m.
German police have released seven people arrested near the western city of Aachen in connection with the investigation of the Paris attacks.
The dpa news agency quotes an unidentified police official as saying checks found that none had links to the attacks.
Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere had earlier told reporters authorities acted on a tip that one of those arrested might be a key suspect, “but sadly it’s not the man that everyone hoped it would be.”
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6:40 p.m.
Germany’s top security official says a Syrian passport found with one of the Paris attackers may have been false flag intended to make Europeans fearful of refugees.
Germany’s interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, told reporters in Berlin that it was “unusual that such a person was faithfully registered in Greece, Serbia and Croatia, even though we’re usually pressing for registration to take place and lament that it isn’t always done properly.”
He said the multiple registrations by a person using the passport were “evidence that this was a trail that was intentionally laid, but it can’t be ruled out at the moment that this was an IS terrorist who came to France…via Germany as a refugee.”
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6:00 p.m.
Germany’s top security official has downplayed possible links between arrests near the western city of Aachen and the investigation of the Paris attacks.
Police said SWAT teams arrested a man and two women in the town of Alsdorf on Tuesday after authorities received a tip from the public that the man might be Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect sought in the attacks. Police later arrested two more persons in the town.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in Berlin that it wasn’t clear how the people might be linked to the Paris attacks, if at all, “but sadly it’s not the man that everyone hoped it would be.”
Austrian authorities say Abdeslam entered Austria from Germany on Nov. 9 — four days before the attacks — with two companions.
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5:10 p.m.
The brother of Salah Abdeslam is calling for him to turn himself in.
Mohamed Abdeslam, who spoke to French TV BFM Tuesday, says his brother was devout but showed no signs of being a radical Islamist.
Abdeslam said: “Of course I call on him to turn himself over to the police. The best would be for him to give himself up so that justice can shed all the light on this.”
Mohamed was arrested and questioned following the attack and was released Monday. He says his brother prayed and attended a mosque occasionally but dressed in jeans and pullovers and showed no signs of being a radical.
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4:34 p.m.
France wants to set up a “refuge” for antiquities from the Middle East to protect them from destruction by the Islamic State group or other zealots bent on wiping out centuries of art and culture they consider un-Islamic.
President Francois Hollande said the plan would offer “asylum” to artefacts threatened by “fanatics who are attacking the living and the dead, all who have humanity today and tomorrow, and those of yesterday.”
Hollande announced the plan in a speech Tuesday at Unesco, the U.N.’s cultural agency.
The plan calls for French experts to work with local authorities — archaeologists and art experts if possible — to help remove works of art or other antiquities that can be moved and take them for safe-keeping in France.
The Sunni Muslim extremists in Syria have imposed a violent interpretation of Islamic law across a self-declared “caliphate,” declaring such ancient relics promote idolatry. They are also believed to sell looted antiquities, bringing in significant sums of cash.
Heritage sites have been damaged constantly since Syria’s war began. Syrian government officials say they have transferred some 300,000 artifacts to safe places in recent years, including from IS-controlled areas.
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4:30 p.m.
Pierre Moscovici, the European Union’s top economy official, has suggested that France may get a sympathetic hearing within the European Commission if the country’s budget plans deteriorate slightly in the coming months.
The French government has already indicated that it will boost spending on security measures, which will likely affect its budget plans.
Moscovici, who was President Francois Hollande’s finance minister between 2012 and 2014, told reporters in Brussels that the “security of citizens in France and everywhere in Europe is the absolute priority and the Commission will certainly show full understanding for that priority.”
He said flexibility is part of the rulebook that underpins the euro currency— the so-called Stability and Growth Pact, or SGP.
The SGP, he said, “is smart and able to adapt to all sorts of situations as they develop.”
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4:05 p.m.
German police say they’ve arrested two more people near the western city of Aachen in connection with the investigation of the Paris attacks.
Police told the dpa news agency Tuesday of the additional arrests in the town of Alsdorf, northeast of Aachen and near the Belgian border.
They had no other details.
Earlier, a police SWAT team arrested two women and one man as they left a job center after receiving a tip from the public that the man might be a suspect in the attacks.
Police said the three were foreign nationals but provided no other details.
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4:05 p.m.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, in a phone conversation with his French counterpart, has called for greater international cooperation in combatting the Islamic State group.
Rouhani spoke to French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday, four days after attacks claimed by the IS group killed at least 129 people in Paris. Iran, which is helping local forces battle the IS group in neighboring Iraq, condemned the attacks.
A statement on Rouhani’s website says he told Hollande that “eradicating terrorism from Syria and Iraq should be our first priority and we should consult and cooperate with each other in this area.”
