COORDINATOR OF BRUSSELS AND PARIS ATTACKS IDENTIFIED:
Posted onFrench investigators have identified a Syria-based extremist of dual Belgian and Moroccan nationality as a suspected coordinator of attacks in Paris and Brussels, sources close to the case said Tues. 8 Nov. 2016. Oussama Atar, a 32-year-old thought to be a member of the ISIS group, was already a suspect in the Brussels attacks on 22 March 2016, but has now been linked to the 13 Nov. 2015 atrocities in Paris. "He's the only coordinator from Syria to have been identified during the investigations," one of the sources said. French investigators have long suspected that the Paris attacks, in which teams of jihadists killed 130 people, were coordinated by one or several people from Syria, but have never named anyone before. Atar, believed to go by the pseudonym Abou Ahmad, is a cousin of the El Bakraoui brothers who blew themselves up in the Brussels airport and metro attacks. Another two cousins, Moustapha and Jawad Benhattal, were arrested on 18 June 2016, on suspicion of planning an attack in Belgium during a public screening of a Euro 2016 football match, Belgian media reported at the time. (Arutz-7)