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| Police officers patrol at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015. The Eiffel Tower has closed again, one day after it reopened following the Paris attacks. The landmark reopened to visitors Monday after being shut for two days after the Paris gun and bomb attacks that killed more than 120 people. |
PARIS
(AP) -- French police are hunting for a second fugitive directly
involved in the deadly Paris attacks, officials said Tuesday, as France
made an unprecedented demand that its European Union allies support its
military action against the Islamic State group.
The
disclosure of a second possible fugitive, whom authorities said they
hadn't identified, came as French and Russian warplanes pounded the
jihadi group's self-declared capital in Syria. President Vladimir Putin
ordered a Russian military cruiser to work with France on fighting the
militants in Syria and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hinted at a
possible Syrian cease-fire so the world could focus on crushing IS.
French
and Belgian police were already looking for a key suspect, 26-year-old
Salah Abdeslam, whose suicide-bomber brother, Brahim, died in the
attacks Friday night that killed at least 129 people and left over 350
wounded in Paris. Islamic state militants have claimed responsibility
for the carnage.
Seven attackers died that
night - three near the national stadium, three inside the Bataclan
concert hall and one at a restaurant nearby. A team of gunmen also
opened fire at nightspots in one of Paris' trendiest neighborhoods.
However,
French officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday that an analysis
of the attacks showed that one person directly involved in them was
unaccounted for. The three officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to provide details about the
ongoing investigation, said the second fugitive has not been identified.
The Paris attacks have galvanized international determination to confront the militants.
The
French government invoked a never-before-used article of the EU's
Lisbon Treaty obliging members of the 28-nation bloc to give "aid and
assistance by all the means in their power" to a member country that is
"the victim of armed aggression on its territory."
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said all 27 of France's EU partners responded positively.
"Every country said: I am going to assist, I am going to help," Drian said.
Arriving
for talks in Brussels, Greek Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos told
reporters that the Paris attacks were a game-changer for the bloc. "This
is Sept. 11 for Europe," he said.
Paris
police said 16 people had been arrested in connection to the deadly
attacks, and police have carried out 104 raids since a state of
emergency was declared Saturday.
French
military spokesman Col. Gilles Jaron said the latest airstrikes in the
Islamic State group's de-facto capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa,
destroyed a command post and training camp. NATO allies were sharing
intelligence and working closely with France, NATO chief Jens
Stoltenberg said.
In Moscow, Putin ordered the
Russian missile cruiser Moskva, currently in the Mediterranean, to
start cooperating with the French military on operations in Syria. His
order came as Russia's defense minister said its warplanes fired cruise
missiles on militant positions in Syria's Idlib and Aleppo provinces. IS
has positions in Aleppo province, while the Nusra militant group is in
Idlib.
Moscow has vowed to hunt down those
responsible for blowing up a Russian passenger plane over Egypt last
month, killing 224 people, mostly Russian tourists. IS has also claimed
responsibility for that Oct. 31 attack.
Seven
of the Paris attackers died Friday, six after detonating suicide belts
and one from police gunfire. However, Iraqi intelligence officials have
told The Associated Press their sources indicated 19 people
participated in the Paris attacks and five others provided hands-on
logistical support.
French Interior Minister
Bernard Cazeneuve conceded that "the majority of those who were involved
in this attack were unknown to our services."
Mohamed
Abdeslam, another brother of fugitive Salah Abdeslam, on Tuesday urged
his brother to turn himself in. Mohamed, who was arrested and
questioned following the attack but released Monday, told French TV BFM
that his brother was devout but showed no signs of being a radical
Islamist. He said Salah prayed and attended a mosque occasionally, but
also dressed in jeans and pullovers.
Two men arrested in Belgium, meanwhile, admitted driving to France to pick up Salah Abdeslam early Saturday, their lawyers said.
Mohammed
Amri, 27, denies any involvement in the Paris attacks and says he went
to Paris to collect his friend Salah, according to his defense lawyer
Xavier Carrette. Hamza Attou, 21, says he went along to keep Amri
company, his lawyer Carine Couquelet said. Both are being held on
charges of terrorist murder and conspiracy.
Belgian
media reported that Amri and Attou were being investigated as potential
suppliers of the suicide bombs used in the attacks, since ammonium
nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used to make explosives, was
discovered in a search of their residence.
Their defense lawyers said they could not confirm those reports.
Salah
and Brahim Abdeslam booked a hotel in the southeastern Paris suburb of
Alfortville and rented a house in the northeastern suburb of Bobigny
several days before the attacks, a French judicial official told The
Associated Press. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was
not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation.
Austria's
Interior Ministry said Salah Abdeslam, the suspected driver of one
group of gunmen carrying out attacks on Paris, entered the country about
two months ago with two unidentified companions. After the attacks,
Salah Abdeslam slipped through France's fingers, with French police
accidentally permitting him to cross into Belgium on Saturday.
Kerry flew to France as a gesture of solidarity and met Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday.
Standing
next to Hollande at the Elysee Palace, Kerry said the carnage in the
French capital, along with recent attacks in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey,
made it clear that more pressure must be brought to bear on Islamic
State extremists.
A cease-fire between Syria's
government and the opposition could be just weeks away, Kerry said,
describing it as potentially a "gigantic step" toward deeper
international cooperation against IS.
A French
security official, meanwhile, said anti-terror intelligence officials
had identified Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the
chief architect of the Paris attacks.
The
official cited chatter from IS figures that Abaaoud had recommended a
concert as an ideal target for inflicting maximum casualties, as well as
electronic communications between Abaaoud and one of the Paris
attackers who blew himself up. The official spoke on condition of
anonymity to discuss the sensitive investigation.
It was not exactly clear where Abaaoud is.
In other developments Tuesday:
-
In a show of solidarity, British Prime Minister David Cameron was
joining Prince William at a soccer match Tuesday night between England
and France in London's Wembley Stadium. Armed police were patrolling the
site.
- Another Belgian car with a shattered
front passenger window was found in northern Paris - the third vehicle
police identified as having links to the attacks.
-
The Eiffel Tower shut down again after opening for just a day Monday,
and heavily armed troops patrolled the courtyard of the Louvre Museum.
-
Germany's top security official said a Syrian passport found with one
of the Paris attackers may have been planted to make Europeans fearful
of refugees. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in
Berlin it was "unusual that such a person was faithfully registered in
Greece, Serbia and Croatia" amid the chaos of Europe's immigration
crisis. He said the multiple passport registrations could be "a trail
that was intentionally laid."
- German police
arrested seven people near the western city of Aachen, but later
released them, saying no links to the Paris attacks were found.
