AN ENDURING THREAT: EUROPE’S ISLAMIST TERROR NETWORKS THEN AND NOW year sentence arising from the same investigation into the Zerkani network, and was arrested in 176 177 Morocco in January 2016; Attar built a relationship with Abaaoud while in Syria]; Reda Kriket 178 [convicted in absentia alongside Abaaoud as part of the same network] , Yassine Lachriri [IS jihadist sentenced to 20 years in Brussels in July 2015; “deemed close” to Abaaoud and recruited 179 by Khalid Zerkani]. Yoni Mayne [travelled to Syria with Abaaoud in 2014; known to be one of 180 Zerkani’s disciples]. Islamic State: 181 -! Amr al-Absi [A member of IS’s Shura Council, referred to as the group’s 182 183 184 “kidnapper-in-chief”, head of media and at on1e point Emir of Aleppo and provincial leader 185 in Homs, al-Absi was killed in March 2016. Abaaoud was part of al-Absi’s group in Syria before 186 he returned to Europe to carry out attacks]; Fabien Clain [Abaaoud is reported to have been 187 working with Clain in Raqqa to recruit French and Belgian fighters for attacks in the West]; Charaf al-Mouadan [An IS fighter and French national killed in December 2015, Mouadan is 188 claimed to have had a direct link with Abaaoud and been planning attacks in the West]. -! Other: Younes Abaaoud [on his second trip to Syria, Abaaoud took his 13-year-old brother, 189 Younes, with him to fight for IS]; Hasna Aitboulahcen [cousin and accomplice; died in 190 explosion during the police raid in which Abaaoud was also killed]; Mehdi Nemmouche [Abaaoud has been described as having guided Mehdi Nemmouche, alleged to have carried out 191 192 the May 2014 attack on a Jewish Museum in Brussels. The two had met in Syria and four days before Nemmouche left from Cologne airport in January 2014, the men had a 24 minute phone 193 call]; Khalid Ben Larbi, Soufiane Amghar [In January 2015, Abaaoud oversaw a plot to kill police officers with the two men (known as the Verviers Cell) who were both killed in a shoot-out ! ! 176 ibid. 177 Malm, S., ‘Pictured: Belgian terror suspect 'with direct links' to Paris attackers who trained with Bataclan mastermind in Syria is arrested in Morocco’, Daily Mail Online, 18 January 2016, available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3405087/Morocco-arrests-Belgian-man-linked-Paris-attackers.html, last visited: 9 August 2016. 178 ‘France charges main suspect in foiled attack plot’, The Times of Israel, 31 March 2016, available at: http://www.timesofisrael.com/france-charges-main-suspect- in-foiled-attack-plot/; and ‘Thwarted Paris plot linked to deadly Brussels ISIS cell’, CBS News, 25 March 2016, available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris- terror-plot-reda-kriket-abdelhamid-abaaoud-brussels-attacks-isis-cell/. Both last visited: 9 August 2016. 179 ‘Un djihadiste belge échangé par la Turquie contre des otages de l’État islamique’, Le Soir, 10 March 2016, available at: http://www.lesoir.be/1145925/article/actualite/belgique/2016-03-10/un-djihadiste-belge-echange-par-turquie-contre-des-otages-l-etat-islamique; and Dalton, M., ‘Investigators Home In on Scope of Terror Network Behind Brussels, Paris Attacks’, The Wall Street Journal, 4 April 2016, available at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/investigators-home-in-on-scope-of-terror-network-behind-brussels-paris-attacks-1459728742. Both last visited: 9 August 2016. 180 Cruickshank, P. and Tim Lister, ‘At least 8 suspects are at large with links to attacks in Brussels, Paris’, CNN, 28 March 2016, available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/28/europe/brussels-paris-attacks-suspects-at-large/, last visited: 9 August 2016. 181 ‘Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee Adds Names of Four Individuals and Two Entities to Its Sanctions List’, United Nations Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 29 September 2015, available at: http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc12063.doc.htm, last visited: 9 August 2016. 182 Spencer, R., ‘Four jihadists, one prison: all released by Assad and all now dead’, The Telegraph, 11 May 2016; ‘Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee Adds Names of Four Individuals and Two Entities to Its Sanctions List’, United Nations Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 29 September 2015. 183 ibid. 184 Orton, K., ‘How Syria's Assad gave rise to one of the most senior IS leaders’, Middle East Eye, 10 March 2016, available at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/how-syrias-assad-gave-rise-one-most-senior-leaders-412885798, last visited: 9 August 2016. 185 ‘Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee Adds Names of Four Individuals and Two Entities to Its Sanctions List’, United Nations Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 29 September 2015. 186 Spencer, R., ‘Four jihadists, one prison: all released by Assad and all now dead’, The Telegraph, 11 May 2016. 187 Van Vlierden, G., ‘PROFILE: PARIS ATTACK RINGLEADER ABDELHAMID ABAAOUD’, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 15 December 2015. 188 Crawford, J., ‘Coalition forces kill ISIS leader connected to Paris attack’, CNN Politics, 30 December 2015, available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/29/politics/isis-leader-connected-to-paris-attack-killed-by-coalition-forces/, last visited: 9 August 2016. 189 Cruickshank, P. and Tim Lister, ‘At least 8 suspects are at large with links to attacks in Brussels, Paris’, CNN, 28 March 2016. 190 Allen, P., ‘Female jihadi in Paris attacks died of 'asphyxiation', say prosecutors - as her family sue French police claiming she was murdered by police’, Daily Mail Online, 21 January 2016, available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3409970/Family-Paris-massacre-jihadi-sues-French-police-claiming-victim-attacks-killed-130.html, last visited: 9 August 2016. 191 Gauthier-Villars, D. et al., ‘Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Alleged Ringleader of Paris Attacks, Was ‘Emir of War’ in Syria’, The Wall Street Journal, 19 November 2015. 192 ‘How Islamic State Infiltrated Europe’, The Wall Street Journal, 1 April 2016. 193 ‘At least 8 suspects are at large with links to attacks in Brussels, Paris’, CNN, 28 March 2016. ! ! 20 !