Paris attacks mastermind identified as Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud
A worldwide manhunt is underway for the mastermind behind the Paris terror attacks, who has been identified as Belgian Moroccan man Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Abaaoud is reportedly on the run and RTL radio in France describes the 27-year-old is 'one of the most active Isis executioners' in Syria.
He is believed to be from the Molenbeek district of Brussels, which has seen multiple police raids since the terror attacks began on Friday night, which killed 129 people in Paris.
Abaaoud allegedly oversaw the attack and funded the Paris terror attacks.
The Independent reports he is the son of a shopkeeper and he joined ISIS in Syria in 2013.
He is also said to have appeared in a video driving a van carrying a pile of mutilated bodies to a mass grave.
French police have launched more than 150 raids, which are still continuing, according to Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
The agency earlier reported the Paris prosecutor's office said two more suicide bombers involved in the deadly attacks in the French capital have been identified.
Prosecutors said on Monday that one suicide bomber from the Bataclan music hall was Samy Amimour, a 28-year-old Frenchman who was charged in a terrorism investigation in 2012.
He had been placed under judicial supervision but dropped off the radar and was the subject of an international arrest warrant.
AFP reports Amimour travelled to Syria three years ago.
Prosecutors say three people in Amimour's family entourage have been in custody since early Monday.
'Identified via dismembered finger'
A suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the national soccer stadium in Paris was found with a Syrian passport with the name Ahmad Al Mohammad, a 25-year-old born in Idlib.
The prosecutor's office says fingerprints from the attacker match those of someone who passed through Greece in October.
The reports come after French police arrested dozens of people over the Paris attacks in raids across the country.
French police have carried out dozens of pre-dawn raids on suspected Islamists, focussing particularly on the Lyon area where they made five arrests and seized "an arsenal" of weapons.
Thirteen raids were carried out around the southeastern French city, leading to five arrests and the seizure of a rocket launcher, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, bulletproof vests and handguns, local police said.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that French intelligence services had prevented several attacks since the summer and that police knew other attacks are being prepared in France as well as in the rest of Europe.
Raids are also underway in Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, and Calais.
"We are making use of the legal framework of the state of emergency to question people who are part of the radical jihadist movement...and all those who advocate hate of the republic," Prime Minister Valls said on RTL radio.
The raids are being undertaken by two tactical anti-terrorism units of the French police force, RAID (Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion) and GIPN (Groupes d’Intervention de la Police Nationale), reports The Guardian.
Cross border operations have been underway in several European countries since the deadly attacks in France on Friday.
French police have launched an international hunt for a Belgian-born man they believe helped organise the assaults with two of his brothers. One of the brothers died in the attacks, while the second one is under arrest in Belgium, a judicial source said.
Police have named Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old born in Brussels, as one of the targets of the manhunt.
Three people were arrested in Belgium as part of an anti-terrorism probe centered on a Belgian hired car found near the site of one of the Paris attacks, Belgian prosecutors said. It was one of two vehicles used in a string of attacks in central Paris within the space of less than an hour.
Sources close to the inquiry said one of the dead gunmen was French with ties to Islamist militants and had been under surveillance by the security services. French media said the man's brother and father had been were arrested on Saturday
A man was arrested in Germany's southern state of Bavaria this month after guns and explosives were found in his car may also be linked to the Paris attacks, Bavaria's state premier said.
The French military has also responded in force to the attacks which left more than 130 people dead and hundreds more injured.
The nation launched airstrikes overnight on an Islamic State stronghold in Syria in a move the French government labelled "self defence".
Twelve French warplanes, including 10 bombers, dropped 20 bombs on the city of Raqqa, which serves as IS's de facto capital.
