The Belgian jihadist suspected of planning the November terror attacks in Paris visited Britain last year despite being hunted by police, The Guardian newspaper reports on Sunday.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud’s alleged trip to Britain could add to pressure on the interior ministry, which is struggling to tighten border controls amid high-profile reports of Britons going to Syria to join the Islamic State group.
The newspaper says photos of British landmarks are found on Abaaoud’s phone after he was killed in a raid in Paris just days after the November 13 coordinated gun and bomb attacks in the French capital that killed 130 people.
The Guardian cites no sources and the interior ministry declines to comment.
Abaaoud entered Britain through a ferry port in England’s southeast, the newspaper says, giving no dates.
The Guardian says he had met several jihadists in London and in Birmingham in central England, but that it was not clear whether the photos on his phone were part of plans for an attack.
— AFP
This undated image taken from a jihadist website on Monday Nov. 16, 2015 shows Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the Paris terror attacks on November 13, smiling before dragging mutilated bodies behind his truck in Syria. (Jihadist video via AP)
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