The presumed mastermind of the terrorist 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 Saturday in connection with the Belgian probe, Justice Minister Koen Geens told the Belgian media: “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,” he added.
Belgian media have named the suspected leader of the cell uncovered by police 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.
A Greek police source said anti terrorism investigators sent DNA samples and fingerprints to Belgium to establish whether Abaaoud was among the suspects arrested in Athens.
Belgium estimates that 335 of its people have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq in the last few years — making it the European country with the highest proportion of nationals enlisted with Middle Eastern militant groups.
Of the 335 who have gone to fight — out of a population of 11 million — 184 are still there and 50 have been killed, while 101 have returned to Belgium, authorities have said.
