Brussels: The presumed mastermind of the jihadist cell dismantled this week in Belgium remains at large, a Belgian minister said yesterday, after arrests in Greece.
Asked if the suspected leader remained on the run after two people were arrested in Athens on Saturday in connection with the Belgian probe, Justice Minister Koen Geens told VRT television: “That is indeed the case. Last night’s arrests did not succeed in nabbing the right person. We are still actively looking for him and I presume we will succeed.”
Belgian media have named the suspected leader of the cell uncovered by police on Thursday in the eastern town of Verviers as Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin.
Two suspects were shot dead in a fierce gun battle with police during the raid, which smashed a cell plotting to kill Belgian police officers on the street and in police stations, local authorities said.
According to Belgian media, the group’s suspected leader Abaaoud spent time fighting alongside the Islamic State group in Syria. He was already known to security forces after appearing in an Islamic State video, at the wheel of a car transporting mutilated bodies to a mass grave. Belgium’s Flemish-language VTM channel reported that Abaaoud had made calls from Greece to the brother of one of the two heavily-armed suspects killed in Verviers. AFP
