French police seeking possible eighth Paris terrorist
Authorities in eastern Paris find assault rifles in the back of abandoned car used by one group of gunmen
French authorities on Sunday were seeking a possible eighth terrorist involved in the deadly attacks in Paris that killed 129 people over the weekend, after a car used by some of the attackers was discovered in a suburb of the capital.
A judicial source said authorities found a Seat Leon car in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil with three Kalashnikov rifles, of the same kind used in the attacks, in the backseat.
The black vehicle was apparently used by the two shooters who fired at the Le Carillon, Petit Cambodge, and La Bonne Biere restaurants and bars in central Paris on Friday night, killing 20 people. After spraying the popular venues with bullets the attackers blew themselves up.
The Islamic State group took responsibility for the Friday night attacks.
Officials had initially said eight terrorists were involved, but then settled on a figure of seven attackers, six of whom blew themselves up and one who was shot dead by police.
A French official, speaking anonymously as he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the suspect they are looking was from the Paris area.
Brussels authorities teamed up with their French peers to identify and apprehend further suspects who may have been involved, making several arrests on Saturday and Sunday. One of the detainees was apparently connected to a Volkswagen Polo used by the three terrorists who killed 89 people in the Bataclan concert hall, when gunmen wearing suicide vests opened fire on the audience during a rock concert.
The Serbian newspaper Blic said authorities had identified the Syrian passport found near one attackers as belonging to one Ahmad al-Mohammad, who had passed through Greece and Serbia last month with tens of thousands of other refugees streaming in from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan. However, the report noted that there is a black market for forged Syrian passports and therefore al-Mohammad may not be the attacker’s real identity.
French authorities earlier named another terrorist as Ismael Omar Mostefai, a 29-year-old French national whose body was found and identified at Bataclan.
France’s worst ever attacks killed at least 129 people and left 352 injured, many in critical condition. In addition to the restaurant attacks and the assault on the Bataclan, three suicide bombers blew themselves up in the stalls outside the Stade de France football stadium, killing one person.