The hunt for Europe’s most wanted man came to a sudden end in a hardscrabble Brussels neighborhood Friday afternoon when Belgian counterterrorism police raided an apartment building and came away with a suspect who could be the key to unlocking the mysteries of November’s massacre in Paris.
The success of the operation, after repeated failures to apprehend 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, cheered European leaders and law enforcement officials, while offering the tantalizing prospect that authorities may soon uncover critical details of a terrorist plot that left 130 people dead on the streets of the French capital.
Abdeslam, who was shot in the leg during Friday’s arrest, was believed to be the last surviving direct participant in the Nov. 13 attacks and was considered the operation’s chief logistician.
Speaking at a news conference, French President François Hollande praised French and Belgian investigators and said that capturing Abdeslam alive “gives us the chance to know the whole truth.”
But he also acknowledged that the web of accomplices in the Paris plot may be far wider than has been previously known, and suggested that Friday’s raids would not be the final ones connected to the killings.
“We have to catch all of those who allowed or facilitated this attack,” Hollande said. “There are more of those people than we thought.”
Terrorism analysts said Friday’s arrests, which netted Abdeslam and four others, could mark a turning point in an investigation that has so far failed to unearth some of the most basic details of the Paris plot, including where it was hatched and by whom.
“It’s really crucial,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism. “Salah Abdeslam had a role in virtually every stage of the planning and the preparation. He could be the missing link to the masterminds.”
Abdeslam, a French national who grew up in Brussels and is of Moroccan heritage, visited Paris before the killings to scout out sites, and also leased cars, rented apartments and dropped off several attackers before they struck, investigators have said.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
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