Alleged Organizer of Paris Attacks Slain in Police Raid: Any Questions?

Christof Lehmann (nsnbc) : Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged organizer of the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday 13, has been killed during a police raid in Saint Denis, report French authorities. France Lower House of Parliament approved an extension of the state of emergency declared by President Francois Hollande.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud_paris_franceAbdelhamid Abaaoud allegedly planned and financed the attacks in Paris on Friday 13, that claimed the lives of 129 while injuring over 300. The office of the public prosecutor in the French capital Paris stated that the bullet riddled body found after a police raid in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis had been positively identified as Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Abdelhamid Abaoud, a.k.a. Abou Omar Sousi and Abou Omar el-Beljiki was born in 1987 and grew up in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, Belgium. Belgian, French and other European police and intelligence services knew Abaaoud and the widely publicized fact that he had joined insurgents in Syria.

He was featured in several newspaper reports as well as in Daesh‘s publication Dabiq. It was also known that Abaoud knew and was in contact with Mehmed Nemmouche who shot and killed four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May 2014. Other participants in the attacks in Paris on Friday 13, 2015, were also known to French police and intelligence services.

Francois Hollande_France_Nov 13 2015On Thursday the French Lower House of Parliament voted for the extensions of the state of emergency that had been declared President Francois Hollande. The extension has to be adopted by the Upper House of Parliament which it is expected to pass, not least considering the fact that French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned that France could face chemical or biological attacks carried out by Daesh, a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL or Islamic State. The state of emergency implies war powers as well as well as sweeping powers that significantly reduce civil rights and legal procedures.

French President Francois Hollande is scheduled to meet U.S. President Barack Obama on December 14 and Russian President Vladimir Putin after  that. The Russian Presidency has ordered the Russian naval and air forces in the Mediterranean and in Syria to cooperate with French military forces. . France has deployed naval contingent led by the aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle to the Mediterranean.

Questions?

The killing of the alleged mastermind behind the Paris attacks as well as the death of the other alleged perpetrators brings to mind the common denominators between the attacks in Paris on Friday 13, the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris earlier this year, and the attacks carried out by a young Danish Palestinian against  a Free Speech event featuring a controversial Mohamed cartoonist and the Synagogue in central Copenhagen, Denmark, earlier this year.

All of the alleged perpetrators were known to police and intelligence services. The public has not been informed exactly which police and intelligence services knew what about the alleged perpetrators, whether police or intelligence personnel or agents of these services were in contact with them and other important information that could shed light on eventual intelligence or police failures, or the eventual involvement of “handlers” who may have helped carry out the attacks. The public, arguably  needs full disclosure as much or more than it needs a state of emergency.

It is particularly disturbing that non of the alleged perpetrators of all of the above mentioned attacks survived. There are two incidents that are particularly disturbing and demonstrate the need for full transparency and disclosure.

A video clearly shows that one of the alleged perpetrators of the attack on the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine was in hand shackles when he was shot dead by police officers at close range. (see video below).

Omar El-Hussein. Photo, courtesy of Copenhagen Police. CC

Omar El-Hussein. Photo, courtesy of Copenhagen Police. CC

The young Palestinian – Danish, alleged perpetrator of the attacks on the free speech event at Krudttønden (Powder Keg) and the Copenhagen synagogue was shot dead by a special police unit that had observed and was present at the scene of the fatal shooting for hours before they confronted the alleged terrorist. Police has not been able to provide any plausible explanation for why it was impossible for them to incapacitate Omar Hamid Abdel Hussein without fatally injuring him.

Special Police Units – Perspectives.

Special police units in most European countries have a cohort of technologies available and they are extraordinarily well-trained. Among the available technologies is infrared equipment that can pick up a persons heat signature through walls. Police units are specially trained for hostage situations.

That includes entering buildings by stealth instead of after surrounding a building with a veil of police vehicles and blue lights. Units are trained for forced entrance and split-second decisions about whom to shoot and whom not to shoot at. Shooting practice includes split second decisions about how to incapacitate – or kill.

Non of the alleged perpetrators of the attacks in Paris on Friday 13, the attack on Charlie Hebdo, or the Copenhagen shootings will have a day in court. It is within this context that an expansion of a state of emergency is particularly disturbing.

What is needed is transparency. What is also needed is that other newspapers beside nsnbc international, that has very limited financial resources, engage in much-needed investigative journalism, ask the hard questions that need to be asked, and demand answers.

CH/L – nsnbc 19.11.2015

NB.: Please do register your free subscription for nsnbc international at the bottom of this page and please use the donate button in the right column. A few coins per months, equivalent to the price of one print newspaper can help us carry out much-needed investigative work. Thank you for informing yourself and for your support. Christof Lehmann, editor-in-chief.

Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2015/11/19/alleged-organiin-police-raid/

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