The presumed mastermind of the Paris terror attacks two weeks ago had plans to strike Jewish targets and to disrupt schools and the transport system in France when hiding from police, the 'Reuters' news agency reports, citing sources close to the investigation.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan origin, also boasted of the ease with which he had re-entered Europe from Syria via Greece two months earlier, exploiting the confusion of the migrant crisis and the continent’s passport-free Schengen system, 'Reuters' says.
According to a witness statement obtained by the French magazine 'Valeurs Actuelles', Abaaoud approached his cousin Hasna Ait Boulahcen two days after the killing spree asking her to hide him while he prepared further attacks. Both Abaaoud and Boulahecen died on 18 November in a police raid in St. Denis at an apartment where the terror suspect had been staying.
Speaking of the planned future attacks, Abaaoud told his cousin on 15 November, two days after the attacks he orchestrated and in which 130 people died, that “they would do worse (damage) in districts close to the Jews and would disrupt transport and schools."
Abaaoud said he would give Boulahecen €5,000 euros (US$ 5,300) to buy two suits and two pairs of shoes for him and an unidentified accomplice to “look the part” in a planned attack on Paris’ commercial district La Defense.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins confirmed on Tuesday that the terrorists had been plotting to attack La Defense on 18 November.
The witness statement also described how Abaaoud had boasted about slipping into Europe with refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war and then spending two months in France undetected prior to the Paris attacks.
