Belgian man 'mastermind'

A French official has named the suspected mastermind behind the Paris attacks as a Belgian man called Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

He was reportedly involved in previously thwarted train and church attacks.

RTL radio in France reported that the 27-year-old is “one of the most active Isis executioners” in Syria.

He is said to be from the Molenbeek district of Brussels, which has seen multiple police raids since eight suicide bombers armed with assault rifles killed at least 129 people in Paris on Friday night.

Abaaoud allegedly oversaw the attack and funded it. He was suspected of planning a series of foiled terror attacks and his phone was traced to Greece.

Charlie Winter, a security analyst specialising in Isis, told The Independent Abaaoud's profile would fit that of someone capable of planning the massacres in Paris.

“He's exactly the kind of person you would expect to plan something like this,” he said.

“You don't go from never trying anything to masterminding an attack involving multiple attackers, multiple targets and multiple weapons.”

At least one of the Paris attackers named so far had links to Abaaoud, De Standaard reports.

Brahim Abdeslam and the suspected mastermind were both named in criminal cases in 2010 and 2011 and lived in the Brussels district of Molenbeek.

Abaaoud could also be linked to a terror cell in the town of Verviers, where police shot dead two militants in January.

They were planning to kill Belgian police officers days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Abaaoud was named as the presumed “mastermind” in that case by Belgian authorities as he remained on the run.

Said to be the son of a shopkeeper from Morocco, he reportedly joined Isis in Syria in 2013 and appeared in a video driving a van carrying a pile of mutilated bodies to a mass grave.

Belgian media reported that he recruited his own 14-year-old brother, Younes Abaaoud, who is believed to be one of the youngest fighters in the so called-Islamic State.

A new police operation was underway in Molenbeek this morning, Belgian media reported.

Rue Delaunoy was shut off while a building was searched near the Al-Khalil mosque and residents were asked not to leave their homes, according to RTBF television.