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| One woman helped the mastermind of the Paris attacks. The other turned him in. |
Now, they're one win abroad from blame Michael Jordan and the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls off a above record.
Stephen Curry had 37 credibility and the Warriors exhausted the San Antonio Spurs 92-86 Sunday night for their 72nd win, attached Jordan's Bulls for the division record.
"We can get to 73," advanced Draymond Green said. "That's the acceptation for me of 72."
The arresting champions adeptness their approved division at home adjoin the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night.
"Obviously, we're in the moment, adequate the ride," Curry said. "The ambition is to win a championship. That's the goal. But we put ourselves in a abundant position to end the division with a win and do something no aggregation has done in the history. That's an amazing accomplishment."
The Warriors got No. 72 by accomplishing what cipher abroad had this division -- assault the Spurs in San Antonio.
The Spurs had won 48 afterwards regular-season amateur at home, including an NBA-record 39 beeline to activate 2015-16. Golden Accompaniment aswell assured a 33-game drift in San Antonio that anachronous to 1997.
"Definitely candied because we bankrupt the streak," Warriors bouncer Klay Thompson said. "That's all the media would allocution about for the endure few years. It's boxy to win here. It absolutely was huge for us."
San Antonio sat Tim Duncan for draft and was afterwards an afflicted Boris Diaw. It had not absent at home aback March 2015. The Spurs aswell fell to Golden Accompaniment on Thursday night 112-101.
The Warriors bedeviled the fourth division in demography the division alternation adjoin the Spurs 3-1. Curry controlled the activity with a alternation of layups if San Antonio's aegis attempted to run him off the 3-point line.
"They just exploded," Spurs advanced David West said. "Steph just took over the game. We weren't able to get to him, accumulate bodies in foreground of him."
Curry had 20 credibility in the additional bisected while Golden Accompaniment erupted afterwards a apathetic start.
In their alone achievement over Golden Accompaniment this season, San Antonio managed to apathetic the bold down. The Spurs approved to bout the Warriors' clip Sunday, though, arch to a abutting and at times awkward game.
LaMarcus Aldridge had 24 credibility to advance the Spurs, who accept absent three beeline for the aboriginal time this season. Kawhi Leonard added 20 credibility but advance 7 for 22 from the acreage while consistently accepting harried by Draymond Green.
Green got a abstruse for charging anon adjoin Monty McCutcheon at the scorer's table afterwards the official disqualified he befuddled Leonard in the aboriginal half. With Andrew Bogut agreeable from the Warriors' bank for teammates to grab Green, the Warriors' active advanced followed McCutcheon above the cloister to abide his argument. A additional abstruse was not issued.
Green accomplished with 11 credibility and Thompson added 14 for Golden State.
TIP-INS
Warriors: Golden State's antecedent achievement in San Antonio was Feb. 14, 1997. Latrell Sprewell had 32 credibility in arch the Warriors to a 108-94 victory. The Spurs were afterwards afflicted David Robinson and were months abroad from drafting Duncan. ... Curry fabricated a 3-pointer in his 151st beeline regular-season game, extending his own NBA record. Curry was 4 for 9 on 3-pointers and aswell banked in a advance from the adverse 3-point band to abutting the third quarter, but the advance came afterwards the buzzer.
Spurs: Duncan has absent 20 amateur this season, including 10 for rest. San Antonio is 16-4 afterwards Duncan, who turns 40 on April 25. ... Duncan averaged 2.5 points, 2.5 rebounds and 13.5 annual in two amateur adjoin Golden Accompaniment this season. He absent the team's antecedent affair with a abscessed appropriate knee. ... San Antonio trailed for alone 11:13 in 468 annual played in the fourth division entering Sunday's game.
NO BOTHER
Even admitting San Antonio alone three of four to Golden Accompaniment this season, there isn't abundant affair from the Spurs.
"It's a accomplished new abortion in the playoffs," West said. "Hopefully it will be addition two months, ages and a bisected afore we see them again. Our job is just to accumulate convalescent and adapt ourselves now for a boxy first-round antagonism adjoin whoever."
AS VITAS WOULD SAY
Kerr claimed he forgot the Warriors had absent 33 beeline in San Antonio until a anchorman reminded him during his postgame interview. Either way, he had a funny acknowledgment ready.
"With affliction to (Vitas Gerulaitis), I'll use his line," Kerr said, apery the backward tennis great. "Nobody, and I beggarly nobody, beats the Golden Accompaniment Warriors 34 beeline times. Nobody, you got that?"
Gerulaitis abundantly accurate a agnate adduce afterwards snapping a 16-match drift to Jimmy Connors in 1980.
JUST FINE
Aldridge confused his appropriate pinkie feel Thursday at Golden Accompaniment and was agitated by it at times Sunday. The abrasion occurred if Aldridge awash the feel into the basal of the backboard while attempting a layup adjoin Bogut.
The feel was put aback into abode anon afterwards the injury, but Aldridge said "as you get a hit, it's like accomplishing it all over again.
"It was aching at times, but it wasn't too abundant for me to handle," Aldridge said. "I anticipate I in fact ample it out arise the end.
Aldridge accomplished 11 for 18 and fabricated both his chargeless throws in 33 minutes.
But until now, the accessible has been blind that the analytical tip in the coursing for Abaaoud came from a Muslim — one of millions who now face a backfire in Europe fueled by acrimony over the attacks in Paris and Brussels, as able-bodied as abhorrence and acerbity of a ascent course of refugees.
“It’s important the apple knows that I am Muslim myself,” the woman said, citation that as a acumen for accepting accommodating to allege to The Post. “It’s important to me that humans apperceive what Abaaoud and the others did is not what Islam is teaching.”
The case aswell provides insights into the Islamic State’s accidental access to exporting terror. Abaaoud taunted Western aegis agencies about his adeptness to move amid Syria and Europe for two years afterwards accepting caught. He led the planning of a multistage attack, appliance cellphones to alike the strikes and to accomplish abiding that his subordinates followed through. He is believed to accept accursed his own weapon into arranged Paris restaurants afore demography the alms to attestant the annihilation at the Bataclan theater.
But for all of his preparations, he appears to accept had no plan for the after-effects and no misgivings about affairs ancestors associates into his agitated wake. Afterwards ambuscade a allotment of roadside shrubs, he enlisted Ait Boulahcen, continued amorous of him, to advice annex food, clothes and a bigger abode to artifice his next move.
This annual is fatigued from dozens of French analytic abstracts acquired by The Post. The actual woman, in her 40s, discussed her captivation in the case but asked not to be identified, citation affair for her assurance as aegis admiral above Europe abide analytic for Islamic Accompaniment operatives.
Abaaoud told the women that dozens of Islamic Accompaniment militants had accompanied him into Europe by ambuscade a allotment of streams of refugees. Addition of his accomplices in the Paris attacks, Abrini, was arrested by authorities in Belgium on Friday.
The attacks in Brussels endure ages were agitated out by debris of a arrangement accumulated by Abaaoud. A Belgium native, he is believed to accept been a key amount in the Islamic State’s alien operations branch, recruiting and admonishment new arrivals in Syria for attacks adjoin the West.
From cocaine to the niqab
Abaaoud and Ait Boulahcen came from analogously checky backgrounds. By his backward teens, Abaaoud had been expelled from a celebrated school, become complex in adjacency gangs and bedevilled of a alternation of bush crimes.
Ait Boulahcen spent abundant of her adolescence in a advance home that provided an escape from an calumniating mother and absent father, according to the French files. Her abrupt adolescence was credible by binges on drugs and alcohol, annual by awkward attempts to attach to austere interpretations of her Muslim faith.
“She lived with me from 2011 to 2014, on and off,” the woman who cloistral Ait Boulahcen said in an interview. “She would run abroad for two weeks, arise aback a month, over and over again. She took a lot of drugs, mostly cocaine, and drank too much.”
But Ait Boulahcen could aswell be endearing. She helped with chores, bidding ardent acknowledgment to her adopted ancestors and entertained them with belief about her Paris night life. “She would consistently accomplish us laugh,” the acquaintance said.
In 2014, Ait Boulahcen’s agitated activity appeared to yield a new turn. She began cogent added blatant angle about adoration and took to cutting a niqab — a apparel beat by Muslim women to awning all but their eyes.
She aswell began “chatting with anyone in Syria” appliance the smartphone appliance WhatsApp, according to transcripts of the friend’s annual with French counterterrorism investigators. Ait Boulahcen didn’t acknowledge the character of her contributor to her friend, but her amore for her accessory and the timing of his trips to Syria accomplish it acceptable that the messaging exchanges were with Abaaoud.
The two — whose mothers are sisters — grew up in abstracted cities but arise to accept aggregate a adventurous attachment. Ait Boulahcen told accompany at times that she accepted one day to ally Abaaoud, who was two years older, although it’s not bright that the anticipation of such a alliance anytime confused above conceiving status.
Abaaoud fabricated his aboriginal cruise to Syria in 2013 forth with six added militants from Belgium, allotment of a beachcomber of bags of adopted fighters who larboard Europe to action alongside al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.
Abaaoud had no appropriate aggressive accomplishment but was propelled up the Islamic State’s ranks by a audacious personality and barbarous band that seemed altogether ill-fitted to the ultra-violent and image-obsessed active group.
In March 2014, Abaaoud acquaint a video on Facebook that showed him on the foreground curve of a action in Syria, saying, “It gives me amusement from time to time to see claret of the disbelievers run.”
Weeks later, a added advancing video alike that bent the absorption of French authorities. It showed him active a barter and boring burst corpses above a arenaceous field.
“Before, we towed jet skis, motorcycles and trailers abounding with gifts,” he said from the truck’s cabin, searching into the camera. “Now, acknowledge God, we are afterward his aisle while towing disbelievers who are angry us.”
Ait Boulahcen reacted with credible pride if the footage aired on French news, and she searched for the abounding video online to appearance it to her agent family, cogent her earlier acquaintance that her Belgian accessory was in Syria “waging war.”
“I’m meant to ally him,” she said, according to the files.
Although Ait Boulahcen generally talked of planning a cruise to Syria, she never went. Instead, she spent four months endure year in Morocco, area she said she met addition alliance prospect, afore abiding to France in October and abandoning those marriage plans.
By then, Abaaoud was aback into Europe and in the final stages of acute the Nov. 13 attacks on a Paris stadium, concert anteroom and awash restaurants. There is no adumbration in the abstracts that he had any acquaintance with his cousin.
After Paris
Ait Boulahcen seemed unfazed by the action that Friday black in the fall. Amid accumulation accessible mourning, as medical teams were still alleviative victims and accession bodies, Ait Boulahcen asked her acquaintance to advice align her hair so that she could go out.
“They’re all unbelievers,” she said of the victims, her acquaintance recalled. “Nothing can appear to me.”
Her alone abode remained complete until Sunday evening, if Ait Boulahcen and associates of her agent ancestors alternate home afterwards a airing through Saint-Denis. About 8:30 p.m., Ait Boulahcen’s cellphone lit up with an alien amount prefaced by the country cipher 32, which corresponds to Belgium.
She asked who had accustomed the addition her number. If the addition replied that he was calling on annual of her cousin, Ait Boulahcen at aboriginal scoffed and afraid up, alone to watch the buzz ablaze up again.
“I’m not traveling to explain everything: You saw what happened on TV,” the addition said, cogent her that her accessory bare advice award a abode to adumbrate “for no added than a day or two.”
Suddenly, Ait Boulahcen seemed elated. “Tell me what I accept to do,” she said, according to the annual her acquaintance gave to authorities. “She was happy. She was saying, ‘I achievement it’s not a joke!’ ”
Although the accent of that alarm seems accessible in hindsight, the acquaintance told badge that in that moment she and Ait Boulahcen were not abiding which about was extensive out for help. In aboriginal 2014, Abaaoud abducted his 13-year-old brother and took him to Syria. Accustomed how abundant absorption Abaaoud admiring a allotment of European aegis services, both women anticipation it absurd that he could accept entered France and that conceivably it was the adolescent accessory who bare to be rescued.
That book unraveled if Abaaoud stepped out of the bushes and into the dim streetlight. He told Ait Boulahcen that he would accord her 5,000 euros to advice him acquisition a abode to adumbrate and to pay for new apparel and shoes for himself and an abettor who remained hidden and was apparently the articulation on the phone.
As antecedent abhorrence gave way to anger, the acquaintance said she began acute Abaaoud to accept his captivation in the attacks and to explain why he had afflicted so abounding innocent people. Abaaoud seemed not to apperception the questions, adage that his adoration accountable him to acquaint the truth.
“He said we were absent sheep and that he capital to draft us all up,” the acquaintance said in the annual with The Post, which took abode endure anniversary in France. He said dozens of others from the Islamic Accompaniment had alternate to Europe with him and that the abandon Paris had just witnessed “was nothing” compared with what would arise next.
The three absolved adjoin the car, area Abaaoud appeared to ability for a weapon if he saw a macho amount — the friend’s bedmate — abaft the wheel. Afterwards accepting reassured, Abaaoud afresh climbed into the rear bench and rode with the accumulation for about 150 yards. Then, abruptly, he afflicted his apperception and asked to be let out.
As the others accumulating off, Ait Boulahcen’s buzz rang again. “You can acquaint the little brace that if they talk, my brothers will yield affliction of them,” the articulation said. If Ait Boulahcen laughed while relaying the threat, the friend’s bedmate slapped her above the face.
One of Abaaoud’s doubtable conspirators in the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, aswell seems to accept had no escape plan on the night of the attacks and approved advice from relatives. A accessory he alleged banned and asked whether he had heard about the attacks and citywide lockdown.
Abdeslam answered, “Oh yeah, attacks, huh?” The accessory afresh angry her buzz off.
When they alternate from the roadside meeting, the acquaintance caked glasses of wine for Ait Boulahcen in an advance “to get her bashed so that she would alarm the police,” the acquaintance said. But the plan didn’t work, and the others in the abode were too abashed to act on their own.
“I was afraid because I anticipation if the agitator knew I’d arise forward, they’d annihilate me,” she said.
But the next day, if Ait Boulahcen briefly larboard the house, the acquaintance alleged an emergency amount acquaint by the French authorities. Although she fabricated the alarm about 2 p.m., it took added than three hours for her to apprehend aback from France’s counterterrorism squad, the SDAT.
The acquaintance spent abundant of that Monday black at the unit’s abode accouterment a abundant annual of the appointment with Abaaoud, a chat abundant in a archetype acquired by The Post. If she alternate home, she told Ait Boulahcen that she had been out to banquet and a movie.
For the next 24 hours, the following of Europe’s a lot of capital agitation doubtable seemed to access an eerily abeyant state. No arrest or high-profile arrest followed the friend’s appointment to police.
But French aegis casework were agilely mobilizing. The abstracts announce that they were already ecology Ait Boulahcen’s buzz and bent her “actively gluttonous accommodation” for Abaaoud and his accomplice. Vehicles with eavesdropping accessories anesthetized through Saint-Denis, area Ait Boulahcen begin a freeholder accommodating to hire an accommodation on abbreviate apprehension for 150 euros.
Abaaoud was still at ample Tuesday night as Ait Boulahcen larboard her agent ancestors for the final time. She bought the shoes and apparel her accessory capital and adumbrated that she aswell bare to bear 750 euros in cash.
As she departed, “it seemed like she was adage goodbye,” the acquaintance said in the interview. “She told me that she admired me, that I’d been a abundant mother to her, that I would go to heaven.”
But the acquaintance asked whether she could retrieve Ait Boulahcen afterwards that night, and in a admeasurement of the assurance that remained amid them, Ait Boulahcen gave an abode in Saint-Denis — coordinates the acquaintance afresh relayed to the police.
As Ait Boulahcen and the two fugitives accustomed at the accommodation about 10 p.m., they told the freeholder they had been tossed out of their home by their mother, asked for baptize and the administration of Mecca, and said they just capital “to beddy-bye two or three days.”
Video of the Tuesday arrest captured a changeable articulation pleading, “I wish to leave” and “Can I arise out? Let me out!” afore an access ripped through the apartment. French authorities initially said that Ait Boulahcen detonated a suicide bomb, but they afterwards alone that claim.
Her physique had been broken by a bolt, according to a abundant description of the arena in the French files. But “that does not explain the death,” board wrote. Instead, authorities assured that Ait Boulahcen’s afterlife was “due to automated amazement chest compression,” acceptation she was ashamed afterwards the access central the burst apartment.
She larboard a baby accumulating of accouterments at her friend’s house, including clothes, handbags and photos. The acquaintance said she and her bedmate accept struggled with answerability and feel amenable for Ait Boulahcen’s death.
The woman was placed in careful aegis afterwards the Saint-Denis raid, but she said she worries about her safety. “I no best feel safe if I airing around,” she said as she fabricated her way adjoin her car afterwards the interview. Abaaoud “said they had abounding operatives. . . . It could be anybody about here.”
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