Paris terror attacks: police identify 'mastermind' of Islamic State attacks as Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud

The mastermind behind the Paris attacks was today named as Belgian Islamic State terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

The multiple terror attacks on the French capital on Friday, which killed 132 people, are believed to have been planned from Syria by Abaaoud, a 27-year-old of Moroccan origin.

He has also been linked to an attack on a Paris-bound high-speed train in August that was thwarted by three Americans and a Briton who overpowered a heavily-armed man.

Abaaoud fought with IS fanatics in Syria and appeared in a video, driving a car transporting mutilated bodies to a mass grave.

French President Francois Hollande ord-ered a massive security crackdown as it emerged one of the bombers had been under police investigation for at least three years. As the hunt for the network of attackers intensified, French police seized a rocket launcher and firearms in 168 raids today.

Police in Belgium arrested a man in their hunt for suspect Salah Abdeslam.

In other developments:

The police raids in France were in Paris, Grenoble, Toulouse, Calais, Jeamont — close to the border with Belgium — and Lyon, where the rocket launcher was found. A Kalashnikov assault rifle, bulletproof vests and handgun were also seized.

Abaaoud has also been linked to an attempted attack on a Paris church and to Sid Ahmed Ghlam, a French student charged with murder, attempted murder and terror offences. Ghlam was arrested in April, after the body of a woman was found in a car, and investigators believe he was planning an “imminent” attack in Paris or the city’s suburbs.

It also emerged today that one of the bombers who targeted the Bataclan theatre, Samy Amimour, 28, from the Paris suburb of Drancy, had been under “judicial control” for three years.

He was being monitored after being charged in October 2012 with terrorism offences following “an abortive attempt to travel to Yemen”, French prosecutors said.

He had been placed under judicial supervision but dropped off the radar and was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Less than a year later, in September, Amimour told his parents and his sisters that he was travelling to the south of France for a few days for a holiday, but in fact went to Syria.

In June last year, his father, who was working in Belgium, apparently tried to bring him home by travelling to Raqqa.

His son had been wounded in battle but refused the money he had brought for him to return home.

The suspect reportedly arrested today, Brussels-born Abdeslam, 26, had been earlier stopped on the Belgian/French border in a car with two other men after the bombing, but had not been detained.

Abdeslam is one of three brothers suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks.

Another has been named as Brahim. The 31-year-old suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest at the Bataclan on Boulevard Voltaire. A third brother was arrested in Belgium.

Another bomber, Omar Ismael Mostefai, was a Paris-born petty criminal who had been flagged for links to Islamist radicalism.

He was identified by a finger blown off in the blast of the explosive belt he detonated in the Bataclan concert hall.

A senior Turkish official says authorities in Ankara flagged Mostefai as a possible “terror suspect” in October 2014. It notified French authorities in December 2014 and in June 2015.