As early as last year Abdelhamid Abaaoud was already known to security forces after appearing, laughing, in an Islamic State video.
Brussels:
The death of the Belgian jihadist suspected of being behind a string of attacks in France removes "the spider in the web" of a Brussels-based Islamic State network, Belgian officials and experts said. But other threats remain.
Alleged planner of last week's Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud was confirmed dead on Thursday after police stormed an apartment in the Paris suburb of St Denis. A petty criminal who went to fight in Syria in 2013, he is believed to have recruited similar young men from immigrant families in his native Brussels district of Molenbeek and elsewhere in Belgium and France.
"The spider in the web is no longer a danger," Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said, calling it a "breakthrough".
Security services were closing in on Abaaoud's cells as the government announced new laws to crack down on Islamists after sharp criticism from France that Belgian was lax in dealing with the biggest concentration of Syria-linked radicals in Europe.
"The net is closing further around the different command cells which started in Verviers," Geens told public television, referring to the eastern town where Abaaoud, 28, had boasted of evading capture in January when police killed two of his associates from Molenbeek in a raid on a safe house.
"Islamic State has now lost a vital link for attacks in this region," Rik Coolsaet, professor at Ghent University, said.
He noted that Abaaoud, who became a social media celebrity while in Syria and boasted of crossing back and forth across frontiers, was linked to numerous attacks in Europe.
These include the shooting of people at Brussels' Jewish Museum, an attack on a Paris suburban church and an attempt to mow down passengers on a Brussels-Paris express train, as well as the multiple assaults in Paris on Friday that killed 129.
WEB REMAINS
With a suspected key accomplice and former prison cellmate, Salah Abdeslam, 26, still unaccounted for -- and close to a 1,000 Belgians with Syrian connections on a core watchlist of potential militants -- there was caution about the future.
"Maybe it will take a while to set up a cell or a network," said Rolf Tophoven of Germany's Institute of Crisis Prevention in Essen. "But there are enough people who can take his place in some way ... To put it in medical terms, a tumour has been removed but I'm sure that the cancer will continue to spread."
People in Molenbeek have expressed surprise at the radical turn of some of their neighbours, including Abdeslam and his brother who ran a bar. Abaaoud's youth was marked by delinquency.
Residents have rallied to defend the reputation of a borough its own mayor described as a "breeding ground" for violent radicals due to high unemployment.
Asked whether Abaaoud's bloody death could inspire others to follow his path -- to martyrdom in the eyes of Islamic State -- or act as a deterrent, security expert Bilal Benyaich said new legislation was likely to have a greater effect on the problem.
"The government measures will be much more important than Abaaoud's death in deterring people following in his footsteps," said Benyaich, from Brussels think-tank the Itinera Institute.
Abaaoud, who appeared notably in an online video from Syria smiling while driving a pick-up truck dragging the bloodied remains of prisoners, exerted an appeal on some in his hometown.
On a furtive trip back to Brussels last year, he induced his 13-year-old brother to go back to Syria with him, making the younger Abaaoud apparently the youngest foreign fighter there.
Before confirmation of the death, Olivier Vanderhaeghen, who works in Molenbeek to dissuade young men from going to Syria, said that with unemployment at 37 percent among local youths, Abaaoud's adventures, whether in the Syrian desert or the streets of Paris, seemed to offer an attractive alternative lifestyle.
"He does represent a certain type of anti-conformity," Vanderhaeghen said, "With asocial or anti-social behaviour which youths identify with."
Alleged planner of last week's Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud was confirmed dead on Thursday after police stormed an apartment in the Paris suburb of St Denis. A petty criminal who went to fight in Syria in 2013, he is believed to have recruited similar young men from immigrant families in his native Brussels district of Molenbeek and elsewhere in Belgium and France.
"The spider in the web is no longer a danger," Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said, calling it a "breakthrough".
Security services were closing in on Abaaoud's cells as the government announced new laws to crack down on Islamists after sharp criticism from France that Belgian was lax in dealing with the biggest concentration of Syria-linked radicals in Europe.
"The net is closing further around the different command cells which started in Verviers," Geens told public television, referring to the eastern town where Abaaoud, 28, had boasted of evading capture in January when police killed two of his associates from Molenbeek in a raid on a safe house.
"Islamic State has now lost a vital link for attacks in this region," Rik Coolsaet, professor at Ghent University, said.
He noted that Abaaoud, who became a social media celebrity while in Syria and boasted of crossing back and forth across frontiers, was linked to numerous attacks in Europe.
These include the shooting of people at Brussels' Jewish Museum, an attack on a Paris suburban church and an attempt to mow down passengers on a Brussels-Paris express train, as well as the multiple assaults in Paris on Friday that killed 129.
WEB REMAINS
With a suspected key accomplice and former prison cellmate, Salah Abdeslam, 26, still unaccounted for -- and close to a 1,000 Belgians with Syrian connections on a core watchlist of potential militants -- there was caution about the future.
"Maybe it will take a while to set up a cell or a network," said Rolf Tophoven of Germany's Institute of Crisis Prevention in Essen. "But there are enough people who can take his place in some way ... To put it in medical terms, a tumour has been removed but I'm sure that the cancer will continue to spread."
People in Molenbeek have expressed surprise at the radical turn of some of their neighbours, including Abdeslam and his brother who ran a bar. Abaaoud's youth was marked by delinquency.
Residents have rallied to defend the reputation of a borough its own mayor described as a "breeding ground" for violent radicals due to high unemployment.
Asked whether Abaaoud's bloody death could inspire others to follow his path -- to martyrdom in the eyes of Islamic State -- or act as a deterrent, security expert Bilal Benyaich said new legislation was likely to have a greater effect on the problem.
"The government measures will be much more important than Abaaoud's death in deterring people following in his footsteps," said Benyaich, from Brussels think-tank the Itinera Institute.
Abaaoud, who appeared notably in an online video from Syria smiling while driving a pick-up truck dragging the bloodied remains of prisoners, exerted an appeal on some in his hometown.
On a furtive trip back to Brussels last year, he induced his 13-year-old brother to go back to Syria with him, making the younger Abaaoud apparently the youngest foreign fighter there.
Before confirmation of the death, Olivier Vanderhaeghen, who works in Molenbeek to dissuade young men from going to Syria, said that with unemployment at 37 percent among local youths, Abaaoud's adventures, whether in the Syrian desert or the streets of Paris, seemed to offer an attractive alternative lifestyle.
"He does represent a certain type of anti-conformity," Vanderhaeghen said, "With asocial or anti-social behaviour which youths identify with."
© Thomson Reuters 2015
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