“We are praying that Abdelhamid absolutely is dead,” his earlier sister, Yasmina, said at the time.
Their prayers — and the hopes of Western aegis admiral — were not answered. Mr. Abaaoud, afresh 26, was in absoluteness on his way aback to Europe to accommodated secretly with Islamic extremists who aggregate his assurance to advance mayhem. He has aback been affiliated to a cord of agitator operations that culminated with Friday’s attacks in Paris.
“Of course, it is not blissful to accomplish claret flow. But, from time to time, it is affable to see the claret of disbelievers,” Mr. Abaaoud declared in a French-language recruiting video for the Islamic Accompaniment appear anon afore his declared death.During his campaign aback to Europe at the end of endure year, European aegis casework best up his aisle and tracked his cellphone to Athens, according to a retired European aggressive official. But they absent him, and anon afterwards that he appeared to accept fabricated it aback to Belgium, area he had developed up in a moderately acknowledged ancestors from Morocco.
At about the time Mr. Abaaoud began his acknowledgment adventure to Europe, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a baton with the Islamic Accompaniment — he now has a $5 actor compensation on his head, offered by the United States — fabricated an animated appeal for the killings of disbelievers. “If you can annihilate a aporetic American or European, abnormally the angry and begrimed French, afresh await on Allah and annihilate him in any address or way about it may be,” Mr. Adnani said in a recorded message.
Western intelligence agencies, afraid that the Islamic Accompaniment was planning to widen its annihilation from the Middle East to Europe, approved to clue a apathetic but abiding crawl of fighters in Syria as they headed home to the Continent.
A Belgian television base appear Monday that aegis casework had been alerted to Mr. Abaaoud’s acknowledgment to Europe by a blast alarm he fabricated from Greece to an inmate, the brother of a accepted jihadist, in a Belgian prison.
The ability a part of aegis admiral that Mr. Abaaoud was aback in Europe led to a above operation to ambush him. A safe abode for militants he had helped set up in eastern Belgium was raided in January.
There, two of his comrades, including the brother of the bedfellow he had called, were killed. Belgian authorities trumpeted the arrest as accepting baffled “a above agitator operation.”
But it absent its arch target, Mr. Abaaoud, who afresh somehow fabricated his way aback to Syria, which the Islamic Accompaniment calls “Sham.”
“Allah addled their eyes and I was able to leave and appear to Sham admitting getting chased by so abounding intelligence agencies,” he afterwards told Dabiq, a slickly produced annual appear by the Islamic State.
It is not accepted whether Mr. Abaaoud had any absolute acquaintance in Syria with Mr. Adnani, the artist of what the C.I.A. director, John O. Brennan, on Monday alleged the Islamic State’s “external operations agenda.” As a low-level fighter, Mr. Abaaoud was absurd to accept alloyed with chief abstracts in the active group’s hierarchy, experts in Belgium said.
But the two men aggregate a affection for propaganda, with Mr. Adnani confined as the Islamic State’s official agent and Mr. Abaaoud featured in assorted application campaigns.
Mr. Abaaoud aswell had an invaluable asset for Islamic Accompaniment leaders acquisitive to yield their action to Europe — a basin of accompany and contacts aback home accommodating to backpack out attacks.
As a adolescent man, like abounding of the jihadists who accept agitated out attacks in Europe, including the brothers who attacked the French abusive magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in January, Mr. Abaaoud showed far added absorption in burglary and drugs than Islam, decidedly the awful disciplined, self-sacrificing Salafi ache advantaged by abounding militants.
Nor was his ancestors impoverished. His father, Omar, endemic a accouterment abundance off the bazaar aboveboard in Molenbeek, a apple of Brussels, and the ancestors lived adjacent in a ample if bare bend home on Rue de l’Avenir — Future Street — abreast the bounded badge station.
Despite his consecutive denunciations of the abusage suffered by Muslims in Europe, he enjoyed privileges accessible to few immigrants, including acceptance to an absolute Catholic school, Collège Saint-Pierre d’Uccle, in an flush residential commune of Brussels.
He was accustomed a abode as a first-year apprentice in the accessory academy but backward alone one year. An abettor to Saint-Pierre’s director, who beneath to accord her name, said he had allegedly flunked out. Others say he was absolved for poor behavior.
He afresh drifted into a accumulation of accompany in Molenbeek that affianced in assorted petty crimes. A part of his accompany were Ibrahim and Salah Abdeslam, two brothers who, like Mr. Abaaoud, lived just a few blocks abroad and are now at the centermost of the analysis into the Paris attacks.
Ibrahim Abdeslam was one of the suicide bombers on Friday and Salah Abdeslam, who busy a car in Brussels that was acclimated to carriage some of the gunmen in the attacks on Paris, is the ambition of an all-encompassing manhunt.
Mr. Abaaoud was arrested for petty abomination in 2010 and spent time in the aforementioned bastille in Brussels area Ibrahim Abdeslam was getting held, according to the agent for Belgium’s federal prosecutor and Ibrahim’s above lawyer. It is not accepted if they were in blow while in the prison, but they did not break long. Afterwards their release, they alternate to Molenbeek, generally blind out at a bedimmed bar accepted as a hang-out for biologic dealers.
To the agitation of his family, which had not apparent him appearance any religious zeal, Mr. Abaaoud al of a sudden confused to Syria in the alpha of 2014, according to jihadi experts tracking Belgian militants.
Soon afterwards his accession in Syria, area he backward for a time in a admirable alcazar in Aleppo acclimated to abode French-speaking jihadists, he explained his best in a video: “All my activity I accept apparent the claret of Muslims flow. I adjure that God break the backs of those who argue him” and “that he exterminates them,” he said.
Early this year, the French annual Paris Match begin a blur that showed Mr. Abaaoud animated and authoritative jokes as he abject corpses with a auto truck.
“I al of a sudden saw my account all over the media,” he told Dabiq, abacus that “thanks to Allah, the infidels were addled by Allah” and did not atom him if he alternate to Europe at the end of endure year.
He aswell somehow abiding his adolescent brother, Younes, who was still in Molenbeek and alone 13 to accompany him in Syria. The boy larboard Belgium for Syria on his own after adopting any suspicion from the authorities.
Mr. Abaaoud’s father, Omar Abaaoud, abutting a accompaniment prosecutor’s case adjoin his son in May for accepting recruited Younes.
“I can’t yield it anymore,” Mr. Abaaoud told bounded reporters at the time. “I am on medication,” he said, abacus that his son “dishonoured our family. He destroyed our families. I don’t anytime wish to see him again.”
His ancestor is now active in Morocco and wants to put the acreage on Future Street up for sale, a ancestors acquaintance said.
Now, Mr. Abaaoud is doubtable of getting a baton of a annex of the Islamic Accompaniment in Syria alleged Katibat al-Battar al Libi, which has its origins in Libya. This accurate annex has admiring abounding Belgian fighters because of accent and cultural ties, said Pieter van Ostaeyen, who advance Belgian militants.
Many Belgian Muslims are of Moroccan origin, he said, and allege a accent begin in eastern Morocco that is agnate to a Libyan dialect. Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, who studies jihadi groups at the Middle East Forum, a analysis centermost in Washington, said there was no affirmation yet that the Paris attacks had been ordered by Mr. Adnani or the Islamic State’s all-embracing leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
But he added that the soldiers at Libyan annex that includes Mr. Abaaoud has played a arresting role in exporting violence. One of their tasks he said, has been to adapt plots that “involved adopted fighters, sleeper beef in Europe that were affiliated with an accessible central of Syria and Iraq, usually in a lower to midlevel position.”
About 520 Belgian fighters accept gone to Syria or Iraq to fight, authoritative Belgium the better doubtable antecedent on a per capita base of adopted fighters for ISIS. According to posts on Twitter and added amusing media accounts, the two men who were asleep during the arrest in Verviers, Belgium, in January, were associates of Katibat al-Battar.
Bilal Hadfi, one of the Paris attackers, was in acquaintance through Facebook with associates of Katibat al-Battar, which agency “Sword of the Prophets,” and decidedly one fighter, who went by the appellation Abu Islaeyem.
Mr. Hadfi, who until bounce 2014 fabricated Facebook posts about soccer, became an acquisitive active in a amount of months. He larboard for Syria aboriginal this year and in June acquaint a alarm for an advance on the West on Facebook.
“Those dogs are advancing our civilians everywhere,” he wrote. “Strike them in their association of pigs so they can’t feel safe afresh in their own dreams.”
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