Officials: Manhunt for suspected Paris attacker on the run

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AP Paris
Last Updated : Nov 16 2015 | 12:13 AM IST
French police put out a photo of a fugitive in the Paris attacks today, saying the suspect is on the run and too dangerous for anyone outside law enforcement to engage directly.
Police identified the man suspected of renting the car that delivered attackers to the Bataclan concert hall as Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old born in Brussels. "Do not intervene yourself," warns the message issued Sunday evening.
Abdeslam is thought to be directly involved in Friday's attacks, which killed 129 people and wounded hundreds in the worst violence in France in decades, French security officials said.
He is one of three brothers believed to be involved in the killings; one was arrested in Belgium and another died in the attack, the first official said.
Abdeslam rented the black Volkswagen Polo used by the group of hostage-takers that left at least 89 people dead inside the Bataclan, another official said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
Seven people were detained Sunday in Belgium in connection with deadly attacks in Paris as the city entered three days of mourning for the 129 people killed in the worst violence in France in decades.
French troops deployed by the thousands and tourist sites were shuttered in one of the most visited cities on Earth as more details of the investigation emerged.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Friday's gun and bomb attacks on a stadium, a concert hall and Paris cafes that also wounded 350 people, 99 of them seriously.
As many as three of the seven suicide bombers who died in the attacks were French citizens, as was at least one of the men arrested in neighboring Belgium.
A French police official said a suicide attacker identified by a skin sample was believed to be living in the Paris suburbs before the attacks. A Belgian official said two of the seven people wired with suicide vests were French men living in Brussels, and among those arrested was another French citizen living in the Belgian capital.
The new information stoked fears of homegrown terrorism in a country that has exported more jihadis than any other in Europe. All three gunmen in the January attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket in Paris were French.
This time, three teams of attackers were involved and seven suicide bombers blew themselves up, three near the stadium, three at the concert hall and one not far from it, authorities said.
A Brussels parking ticket found inside the Volkswagen Polo parked outside the Bataclan concert hall led to one of the men arrested in Belgium, according to a French police official.
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First Published: Nov 16 2015 | 12:13 AM IST

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