Belgian Fugitive, Jihadi Identified As Paris Attack Mastermind

Once a happy-go-lucky student at one of Brussels’ most prestigious high schools, Saint-Pierre d’Uccle, Abdelhamid Abaaoud morphed into Belgium’s most notorious jihadi, a zealot so devoted to the cause of holy war that he recruited his 13-year-old brother to join him in Syria.

The child of Moroccan immigrants who grew up in the Belgian capital’s scruffy and multiethnic Molenbeek-Saint-Jean neighborhood, the fugitive, in his late 20s, was identified by French authorities on Monday as the presumed mastermind of the attacks last Friday in Paris that killed 129 people and injured hundreds.

What’s more, one French official with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that Abaaoud is believed to have links to earlier terror attacks that were thwarted: one against a Paris-bound high-speed train that was foiled by three young Americans in August, and the other against a church in the French capital’s suburbs.

The official wasn’t authorized to make public comments on the subject and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“All my life, I have seen the blood of Muslims flow,” Abaaoud said in a video made public in 2014. “I pray that Allah will break the backs of those who oppose him, his soldiers and his admirers, and that he will exterminate them.”

Belgian authorities suspect him of also helping organize and finance a terror cell in the eastern city of Verviers that was broken up in an armed police raid on Jan. 15, in which two of his presumed accomplices were killed.

The following month, Abaaoud was quoted by the Islamic State group’s English-language magazine, Dabiq, as saying that he had secretly returned to Belgium to lead the terror cell and then escaped to Syria in the aftermath of the raid despite having his picture broadcast across the news.

“I was even stopped by an officer who contemplated me so as to compare me to the picture, but he let me go, as he did not see the resemblance!” Abaaoud boasted.

Credit: AP

Why Facebook Activated Its Safety Check Feature For Only Paris Attack

Safety Check isn’t a new feature for Facebook. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg introduced it to the social platform over a year ago. However, it wasn’t until the Paris attacks on Friday night that many started noticing an unfamiliar notification confirming the safety status of their friends located in the area: “[Friend’s Name] was marked safe during Paris Terror Attacks.”

The tool allows users to check in on friends during a disaster or crisis. Facebook describes it as “a simple and easy way to say you’re safe and check on others.” Which was a welcome relief for those with friends and loved ones in or around Paris during the tragic attacks that took at least 129 lives and left 352 injured. According to The Huffington Post, as of last night 4.1 million people had checked in as safe using the feature in the 24 hours since it launched.

Credit: Cosmopolitan

Malian ‘Hero’ of Paris Attacks gets French Nationality

A Malian described as a “hero” after he helped hostages at a Jewish supermarket hide during last week’s Paris attacks will be awarded French nationality Tuesday, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

Lassana Bathily, who has lived in France since 2006 and applied for French nationality in July of last year, was praised for his “bravery” in a statement by Cazeneuve, which also said the 24-year-old Malian’s naturalisation will be granted at a ceremony on Tuesday.

As the hostage-taking siege by jihadist Amedy Coulibaly began January 9, Bathily — an employee at the kosher store in eastern Paris — ushered a group of trapped customers into a cold storage room, shut off the refrigeration system, and closed the terrified people inside for protection. “I heard shots and I saw my colleagues and clients running down,” Bathily recalled later. “I told them ‘Come, come,’ (and) got them into the freezer.”

Bathily proposed helping the hiding clients escape the supermarket through its delivery lift. But when no one wanted to take that risk, Bathily fled alone, flagged down the police, and provided them information on the layout of the store that was vital to the assault that ended the siege.

A practising Muslim whose heroism drew wide praise — and 220,000 signatures on an online petition calling for his naturalisation — Bathily has said his actions were those that any human should take for others facing threats from a common enemy. “We’re brothers. It’s not a question of Jews, Christians or Muslims,” he told French news channel BFMTV. “We’re all in the same boat, and we have to help one another to get out of this crisis.”

Credit: Yahoo