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Revelation on Brussels Attackers Fuels Fears of New Assaults Revelation on Brussels Attackers Fuels Fears of New Assaults
(about 2 hours later)
BRUSSELS — The announcement by the Belgian authorities on Sunday that the attackers who set off bombs in Brussels on March 22 had initially planned to strike in France was a reminder that intelligence and police services are still learning about the full extent of the Islamic State’s plots and networks in Europe, and are struggling to keep up. BRUSSELS — The announcement on Sunday that the plotters of last month’s Brussels terror attacks had originally intended to hit Paris again only heightened the growing concern among police and intelligence agencies that shadowy Islamic State networks could unleash new attacks at any time, and in other European capitals.
By Sunday, the excitement over the capture on Friday of four suspects in the Brussels bombings had begun to give way to more sober assessments, and warnings that more attacks could come at any time, in other European capitals as well as in Paris and Brussels. As intelligence experts and officials took stock of what they have learned since the Nov. 13 assaults in and around Paris, which killed 130 people, several things have come into focus. The scale of the Islamic State’s operations in Europe are still not known, but they appear to be larger and more layered than investigators at first realized; if the Paris and Brussels attacks are any model, the plotters will rely on local criminal networks in addition to committed extremists.
“We are not finished yet with the job of finding everyone who is in this big network, Paris and Brussels,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, the head of the French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism in Paris. Even as the United States, its allies and Russia have killed leaders of the Islamic State, and have rolled back some of the extremist organization’s gains on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State appears to be posing a largely hidden and lethal threat across much of Europe.
“Every time progress is made, we add another few people to the list of people we are looking for,” he said. When Belgian prosecutors announced that Mohamed Abrini, one of the men arrested on Friday, had confessed to being the mysterious third man in the Brussels Airport bombing, it seemed to mark a victory. But it also underscored the monumental challenges that extend across borders, for Mr. Abrini was also a suspect in the Paris attacks.
The reality that, after five months of intensive work, French and Belgian investigators into the attacks in Paris and Brussels are still finding new suspects and learning about potential new targets provides a window into the size of one of the Islamic State’s European networks. There are almost certainly other cells that are active in non-French-speaking countries and that have not yet surfaced. Britain, Germany and Italy are thought to be high on the list of Islamic State targets.
Western intelligence and counterterrorism officials say their working assumption is that there are potentially comparable cells — although the one in Paris and Brussels may have been particularly large — in two or more European countries, including Britain and Germany, and that they are poised to carry out attacks. It adds up to a long road ahead in Europe for law enforcement and intelligence agencies but also for citizens who are having to learn to adapt to an array of new security precautions, especially in public places.
“We are not finished yet with the job of finding everyone who is in this big network of Paris and Brussels,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, the head of the French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism in Paris. “Every time progress is made, we add another few people to the list of people we are looking for.”
It is sobering to look at the number of people believed to have some connection to the Paris and Brussels attacks: 36 are suspected of being active participants in varying degrees in organizing or carrying them out. Of those, 13 are dead, and most of the rest are in custody. A handful have been released but subject to conditions, like daily check-ins at a police station.
Others are probably lying low or on the run. What worries investigators is that many of the participants in the Paris-Brussels network were recruited by a preacher in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, Khalid Zerkani. He was tried twice in Belgium, accused of recruiting more than 50 young men to join the fight in Syria and helping to finance their journey to the Middle East. Many of those recruits were also named in those trials and tried in absentia.
“There are still many people involved who were part of the Zerkani network, who were convicted in absentia — at least five to 10 — and we don’t where they are or what they might do,” Mr. Brisard said.
While they could turn out to be more minor players, they could also emerge able organizers of new assaults. Among Mr. Zerkani’s recruits, prosecutors say, were Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the on-the-ground commander of the Paris attacks, and Reda Kriket, who was arrested on March 24 in a suburb of Paris. Mr. Kriket has been accused of being in the final stages of planning an attack in France involving “an arsenal of weapons and explosives of an unprecedented size,” said François Molins, the Paris prosecutor.
From the ammunition and material found it appears that a highly lethal attack was averted. Mr. Kriket had Kalashnikov assault rifles, a submachine gun, pistols, ammunition and four boxes containing thousands of small steel balls.
Four men in touch with Mr. Kriket, who were arrested in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, had in their possession 45 kilograms of ammunition, according to the Dutch Public Broadcaster, NOS. That is enough ammunition for about 2,500 rounds, which is enough to supply a number of gunmen with multiple magazines.
Mr. Kriket’s connection to the Paris and Brussels cells that carried out the attacks in those cities was not clear, and experts have differing views, but it raises the possibility that there are other, similar cells in France and Belgium as well as farther afield.
“The cells are kept quite separate,” said Claude Moniquet, a former French intelligence officer who now works in Belgium.
He added that so far investigators had not learned much about Mr. Kriket either from Salah Abdeslam, who prosecutors say was the only one of the 10 men directly involved in the Paris attacks who survived, or from Mr. Abrini, who was arrested on Friday and is accused of being involved in the logistics for the Paris attacks. He is also suspected of trying to detonate a bomb at the Brussels airport.
Western intelligence and counterterrorism officials say their working assumption is that there are Islamic State networks in two or more European countries in addition to those in France and Belgium.
“Other Islamic State cells are highly likely to be in existence across Western Europe, preparing and organizing further operations, and awaiting direction from the group’s central leadership to execute,” said Matthew Henman, the head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London.“Other Islamic State cells are highly likely to be in existence across Western Europe, preparing and organizing further operations, and awaiting direction from the group’s central leadership to execute,” said Matthew Henman, the head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London.
“A key area of focus is gaining a better understanding of how these cells are structured and their organizational and operational methods,” he said.“A key area of focus is gaining a better understanding of how these cells are structured and their organizational and operational methods,” he said.
The Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Brussels and Paris, has demonstrated a longstanding animosity for France, an active participant in the United States’ fight against the Islamic State in Syria. It has pledged to target France and has been helped by the large number of French-speaking foreign fighters, many of them from France and Belgium, but others from the French-speaking Maghreb countries of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Mr. Henman, reflecting the views of half a dozen intelligence, counterterrorism and military officials interviewed in Europe last week, said the authorities’ working assumption of how the Islamic State structures its external operations in Europe might be shifting.
Of the foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 are from Europe. About 1,800 people have left or tried to leave France to fight in Syria and Iraq, according to recent statements by Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister. An additional 450 have gone to those countries from Belgium, according to estimates by European think tanks. Officials believed that the Islamic State had developed an overarching network of facilitators in Europe over the last few years to buy weapons, rent cars and reserve hotel rooms for teams of operatives who had previously traveled to, or were returning from, Iraq or Syria.
The information that the Islamic State had aimed to strike France again came from the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office in a statement that said, “Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again.” But after Brussels, Mr. Henman said, the thinking now reflects the belief that the operation may instead be made up of self-contained cells, with individuals who can perform multiple jobs as needed.
“Eventually, surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation, they urgently took the decision to strike in Brussels,” it added. Most at risk of an attack are probably Britain and Germany, but Italy is also a potential target. Britain in particular has been mentioned by the Islamic State. The British authorities are on alert, and the threat level in Britain remains at “severe,” meaning that an attack is “highly likely.”
The French targets were La Défense, a large office and commercial complex just northwest of Paris, and an unidentified Catholic association, said Claude Moniquet, a former French intelligence officer who now works in Belgium and who has been in regular contact with investigators. The Islamic State’s threats are in some ways easier to fulfill in France because of the large number of French-speaking foreign fighters, many of whom are European citizens from France and Belgium.
Two of the men who took part in those attacks and who died in a police raid days later had also been planning an assault on La Défense, the Paris prosecutor said at the time. Of the foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 are from Europe. About 1,800 people have left or tried to leave France to fight in Syria and Iraq, according to recent statements by Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister. An additional 450 have gone to those countries from Belgium, according to estimates by analysts in Europe.
The Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the Paris and Brussels attacks, had also mentioned an assault in the 18th Arrondissement of Paris in November, but the exact location was never clear, and no attacks occurred there. The announcement on Sunday that the Islamic State had aimed to strike France again came from the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office. “Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again,” the office said in a statement.
La Défense would be both a symbolic target and an important economic one for terrorists. Tens of thousands of people work in the complex, which includes the offices of many of France’s major companies, including Areva, Total and Société Générale. Many multinational companies also have large offices there. “Eventually, surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation, they urgently took the decision to strike in Brussels,” the statement said.
La Défense is also home to an indoor shopping mall and a train station for two of the busiest commuter lines in the Paris region. In the attacks in the two capitals, a total of 162 people died and 753 were wounded.
Investigators have uncovered an increasing number of links between the group that attacked Paris in November, killing 130 people, and the group that bombed the Brussels airport and a subway station last month, killing 32.
Those links suggest, as did the prosecutor’s office statement Sunday, that the groups were part of the same larger network, with several people playing roles in both attacks. Although many people who are suspected of being among them have been arrested, it is unclear to what extent the network is still operational.
One of those suspects is Mohamed Abrini, 31, who is accused of playing a significant logistical role in the Paris attacks. He was seen in surveillance videos with some of the Paris attackers in November as they traveled to Paris from the Brussels area to manage the details for the attacks, and on the trip transporting some of the attackers to Paris.
Mr. Abrini, a Belgian and Moroccan citizen, was arrested in the Anderlecht section of Brussels on Friday. The police said he later admitted that he was the “man in the hat,” a suspect in the Brussels Airport bombing who was caught on surveillance cameras accompanying two suicide bombers who detonated explosives in the departures hall, killing 15 people and themselves.
Mr. Abrini’s DNA and fingerprints were found in a Brussels apartment, on Rue Henri Bergé in the Schaerbeek neighborhood, where investigators suspect explosives and suicide belts were made for the Paris attacks. Mr. Abrini’s DNA and fingerprints were also found in an apartment in Schaerbeek, on Rue Max Roos, that was used by the Brussels attackers, and where investigators found large quantities of explosives and bomb-making equipment.
A Belgian judge specializing in terrorism cases ordered that Mr. Abrini be detained in connection with the Brussels attacks and charged him with participation in the activities of a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempted terrorist murders, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said Sunday.