3rd Bataclan Gunman IDed as Frenchman

He left country for Syria in 2013
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 9, 2015 3:59 AM CST
3rd Bataclan Gunman ID'd as Frenchman
The first names of the 130 victims of the Paris attacks are spread over buildings in Lyon, central France, during a projection by French artist Daniel Knipper, on Tuesday.   (Laurent Cipriani)

The third attacker who terrorized Paris' Bataclan concert hall before being killed there has been identified as a Frenchman who left for Syria in 2013, two French officials said Wednesday, heightening fears of what increasingly appears to be an entirely homegrown European plot. Foued Mohamed-Aggad left Strasbourg for Syria in late 2013, a French judicial official said, at a time when a group of about a dozen young men from the eastern city left for the war zone. Some returned of their own will—including his brother—telling investigators they were disgusted by what they had seen. All are charged with terror-related offenses and face trial. The Frenchman believed to have recruited them, Mourad Fares, is also under arrest.

All the Nov. 13 attackers identified so far have been from France or Belgium, but there is still identification work for the police to do. One of the attackers, who was killed Nov. 18 in a police raid on a hideout, remains entirely unidentified. Two of the suicide bombers at the French national stadium carried Syrian passports that are believed to be fake. "What is important is that the investigation is progressing, that the accomplices are found out, that arrests happen," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Wednesday. "This will all take time, and in the face of the terrorist threat that is unfortunately here, we need to carry on with this work of tracking down terrorists because we are at war with radical Islam." (The band whose concert was attacked returned to a Paris stage on Monday.)

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