Paris Attackers Refined Tactics To Inflict Harm

Investigators found crates' worth of disposable cellphones, meticulously scoured of email data. All around Paris, they found traces of improved bomb-making materials. And they began piecing together a multilayered terrorist attack that evaded detection until much too late.

In the immediate aftermath of the Paris terror attacks on Nov. 13, French investigators came face to face with the reality that they had missed signs that the Islamic State was building the machinery to mount sustained terrorist strikes in Europe.

Now, the arrest Friday in Belgium of Salah Abdeslam, who officials say was the logistics chief for the Paris attacks, offers a crucial opportunity to address the many unanswered questions surrounding how they were planned. Abdeslam, who was transferred Saturday from a hospital to the Belgian federal police headquarters for questioning, is believed to be the only direct participant in the attacks who is still alive.

Much of what the authorities know is in a 55-page report compiled in the weeks after the attack by the French anti-terrorism police, presented privately to France's Interior Ministry; a copy was recently obtained by The New York Times. While much about the Paris attacks has been learned from witnesses and others, the report has offered new perspectives about the plot that had not yet been publicized.

The attackers, sent by the Islamic State's external operations wing, were well versed in a range of terrorism tactics - like suicide vests, gunmen in various locations and hostage-taking - to hamper the police response, the report shows. They exploited weaknesses in Europe's border controls to slip in and out undetected, and worked with a high-quality forger in Belgium to acquire false documents.

The scale of the network that supported the attacks, which killed 130 people, has also surprised officials, as President Francois Hollande of France acknowledged Friday. As of Saturday, there are 18 people in detention in six countries on suspicion of assisting the attackers.

French officials have repeatedly warned citizens that more strikes are possible, saying security and intelligence officials cannot track all the Europeans traveling to and from Islamic State strongholds in Syria and Iraq. And Western intelligence officials say their working assumption is that additional Islamic State terrorism networks are already in Europe, with more being formed.

The French police report, together with hundreds of pages of interrogation and court records also obtained by The Times, suggest that there are lingering questions about how many others were involved in the terrorist group's network, how many bomb makers were trained and sent from Syria, and the precise encryption and security procedures that allowed the attackers to evade detection during the three months before they struck.

Taken as a whole, the documents, combined with interviews with officials and witnesses, show the arc of the Islamic State's growth from a group that was widely viewed as incapable of carrying out large-scale terror assaults. And they suggest that nearly two years of previous, failed attacks overseen by the leader of the Paris assault, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, served as both test runs and initial shots in a new wave of violence the Islamic State leaders have called for in Western Europe and Britain.

The attacks marked a subtle shift in the Islamic State's external operations branch that was first publicized in the group's French-language online magazine, Daral-Islam, last March.

In the previous small-scale attacks, the Islamic State, much like al-Qaida before it, had taken aim at symbolic targets, including security installations and establishments with clear links to Israel or Jewish interests, like the Jewish Museum in Brussels. But in an interview published in the online magazine, a senior ISIS operative identified as Boubaker al-Hakim, described as the godfather of French jihadis, advised his followers to abandon the symbolism: "My advice is to stop looking for specific targets. Hit everyone and everything."

The attackers in Paris appear to have moved easily between Belgium and France, and in some cases between the Middle East and Europe. At least three of the Paris attackers were wanted on international arrest warrants before the attacks but were able to travel freely. And security services are constrained by the inability or unwillingness of countries to share intelligence about potential terrorists, for legal, practical and territorial reasons.

"We don't share information," said Alain Chouet, a former head of French intelligence, "We even didn't agree on the translations of people's names that are in Arabic or Cyrillic, so if someone comes into Europe through Estonia or Denmark, maybe that's not how we register them in France or Spain."

That night, the French police were already spread thin by the explosions at the stadium and the beginning of the cafe shootings by the time the terrorists attacked the Bataclan concert hall and took hundreds of people hostage. The police report and new interviews offered extensive details about the siege by survivors.

According to the police report and interviews with officials, none of the attackers' emails or other electronic communications have been found, prompting the authorities to conclude that the group used encryption. What kind of encryption remains unknown, and is among the details that Abdeslam's capture could help reveal.

At nearly midnight, two hours after they took over the Bataclan, the gunmen began negotiating in earnest with the police.

"We want to talk to someone!" the gunman demanded, then turned to his demands for France to stop military strikes in Syria: "I want you to leave the country. I want you to remove your military. I want a piece of paper signed that proves it!" If not, he threatened, "I'm killing a hostage and throwing him out the window!"

France's Anti-Criminal Brigade was the first law enforcement team to break through the Bataclan's doors. The division commander, Guillaume Cardy, and a colleague got in through the main doors and managed to shoot one of the attackers, who was on the stage. Wounded, he detonated his vest, the report said.

The two remaining gunmen returned fire, forcing Cardy to take cover. Members of another Paris police division tried to reach the wounded hostages, but were also forced to take cover, the report said.

Together the police charged the two surviving gunmen, and after a heavy barrage of fire, they killed the second before he could detonate his vest. The third gunman then blew himself up. In the end, it took four elite brigades to stop three gunmen, the report said.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)