Paris attacks: France conducts new raids

PARIS

French police conducted 128 new raids across the country Monday night following the Paris terror attacks, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Tuesday.

Cazeneuve told France Info radio police were making rapid progress in their investigation into the attacks but declined to give further details.

The searches were conducted under emergency powers announced by President Francois Hollande in the wake of the attacks that killed 129 on Friday evening.

Cazeneuve said the majority of those involved in the attacks were unknown to the French security services.

Earlier, 168 raids across France resulted in the arrest of 23 people and the seizure of 31 weapons, including a rocket launcher in Lyon. Another 104 people were placed under house arrest, according to Cazeneuve.

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira announced on Tuesday afternoon that 117 of the 129 victims had been identified. The victims were from 19 countries.

Hollande said the attacks - the deadliest on European soil since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191 - were carried out by Daesh. The Syria-based group later claimed responsibility.

The president will travel to Washington later this month to meet U.S. President Barack Obama before travelled to Moscow to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The leaders will discuss the fight against Daesh and the Syrian conflict in the Nov. 24 and 26 meetings.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement that Hollande and Obama would “consult and coordinate our efforts to assist France’s investigation into these attacks, discuss further cooperation as part of the 65-member counter-ISIL [Daesh] coalition, and reiterate our shared determination to confront the scourge of terrorism."

He added: “This visit will underscore the friendship and solidarity between the United States and France, our oldest ally."

Two bombers, Ahmad al-Mohammad and Samy Amimour, are the latest attackers to be identified.

Al-Mohammad died at the Stade de France. He has been identified through a Syrian passport found at the scene that identified him as a 25-year-old born in Idlib, Paris Chief Prosecutor Francois Molins’ office said in a statement.

The prosecutor said fingerprints from the attacker matched those of someone who passed through Greece in October but added that the passport is yet to be authenticated.

U.K. newspaper The Guardian reported on Monday that Serbian police had arrested a man carrying a Syrian passport with the same details as the one found near the body of one of the Paris suicide bombers.

“Serbian officials said that they believe both passports are fake but added that they are working with French investigators to establish the origin of the documents,” The Guardian reported, citing Serbian police sources.

Amimour was one of the Bataclan concert hall bombers. He was aged 28 and lived in Drancy, a northern suburb of Paris. Molins said he was charged with terror offenses in 2012 after trying to travel to Yemen and is reported to have gone to Syria in 2013.

A wanted notice has been issued for Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national born in Belgium who is suspected of being involved in the attacks.

His brother, Ibrahim, blew himself up near the Bataclan. His other brother, Mohamed, was arrested in Belgium and later released without charge.

Speaking to the press after his release in the eastern Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, Mohamed said his family did not know what his brothers were involved in nor the whereabouts of his Salah.

“My parents are completely shocked by the tragedy,” he told journalists. “My two brothers are normal and I have never noticed anything strange.

“My brother Salah still has not been heard from. Perhaps he just isn’t daring to show himself to the authorities. We don’t know where he is or have any information.”

Salah Abdeslam reportedly rented a Volkswagen Polo in Belgium that carried some of the attackers to their targets. He is said to have been stopped hours after the attacks near the Belgian border with two other men but all three were released.

Also identified Sunday were his dead brother Ibrahim and Omar Ismail Mostefai, another of those who died at the Bataclan.

Ibrahim Abdeslam, 31, was linked to Belgian extremist Abdelhamid Abaaoud and convicted in 2010 and 2011 in criminal cases.

Abaaoud, 27, is believed to be the mastermind behind the Paris attacks.

A Belgian of Moroccan origin, Abaaoud was first identified by police as a wanted extremist after a gun battle in eastern Belgium in January during a raid on a Daesh cell.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Belgian court earlier this year after being tried in absentia for recruiting for Daesh in Syria.