AN ENDURING THREAT: EUROPE’S ISLAMIST TERROR NETWORKS THEN AND NOW Known to the authorities: Brahim wasplaced on a police list in 2015 over potential connections to Islamist 212 fighters. Networks and associates: -! Paris attacks (November 2015): Salah Abdeslam [brother], Abdelhamid Abaaoud [Brahim appears alongside Abaaoud in several police files relating to criminal cases between 2010-11; 213 details unknown] , Chakib Akrouh, Bilal Hadfi, Ahmad al-Mohammed, M al-Mahmod, Omar 214 Ismail Mostefai, Sami Amimour, Foued Mohammed Aggad [fellow attackers]. CHAKIB AKROUH 215 Role: Suspected of being one of the Paris gunmen who targeted cafes and restaurants. Bio: Akrouh was a 25-year-old Belgian-born Belgian-Moroccan who lived near the Abdeslam brothers in Molenbeek. He became associated with the extremist network related to Khalid Zerkani before travelling 216 to Syria, returning to carry out the Paris attacks. He died alongside Abaaoud when he detonated his 217 suicide vest during the police raid. Foreign training/combat: He travelled to between Syria in September 2012 and early 2013 with Gelel 218 219 Attar. He first joined Katibat al-Muhajirin before joining IS. Movements: Unspecified. Criminal history: Akrouh was sentenced in absentia to five years in July 2015 for “participating in a 220 terrorist organisation” in connection with his relation to the Zerkani network. Known to the authorities: See above. Network and associates: -! Paris attacks (November 2015): Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Salah Abdeslam, Brahim Abdeslam, Bilal Hadfi, Ahmad al-Mohammed, M al-Mahmod, Omar Ismail Mostefai, Sami Amimour, 221 Foued Mohammed Aggad [fellow Paris attackers]. ! ! 212 ibid. 213 Farmer, B. et al., ‘Who is Salah Abdeslam and who were the Paris terrorists? Everything we know about the Isil attackers’, The Telegraph, 18 March 2016. 214 ‘Paris attacks: Who were the attackers?’, BBC News, 27 April 2016. 215 ‘Paris attacks: St-Denis bomber also thought to be final gunman’, Guardian, 14 January 2016, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/14/paris- prosecutors-identify-bomber-killed-after-november-attacks, last visited: 9 August 2016. 216 Drozdiak, N. and Matthias Verbergt, ‘Paris-Attack Suspect Traveled to Syria in 2013’, The Wall Street Journal, 15 January 2016, available at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-attack-suspect-traveled-to-syria-in-2013-1452859385, last visited: 9 August 2016. 217 Bacchi, U., ‘Paris attacks: Chakib Akrouh was Saint-Denis mystery suicide bomber who died alongside Abdelhamid Abaaoud’, available at: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/paris-attacks-chakib-akrouh-was-saint-denis-mystery-suicide-bomber-who-died-alongside-abdelhamid-1538129, last visited: 9 August 2016. 218 ‘Khalid Zerkani, Brussels’ jihadist preacher who ‘perverted a generation’’, France 24, 26 March 2016; and Drozdiak, N. and Matthias Verbergt, ‘Paris-Attack Suspect Traveled to Syria in 2013’, The Wall Street Journal, 15 January 2016. 219 Drozdiak, N. and Matthias Verbergt, ‘Paris-Attack Suspect Traveled to Syria in 2013’, The Wall Street Journal, 15 January 2016. 220 ibid. 221 ‘Paris attacks: Who were the attackers?’, BBC News, 27 April 2016. ! ! 22 !