Hundreds of Belgian police raided a Brussels neighborhood Monday morning in search of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists and arrested the “eighth” man involved in the attacks but who did not blow himself up.
He was identified as Saleh Abdeslam.
The mastermind behind the gruesome killings of at least 132 people is Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 26, who is in Syria. He also is suspected of being behind plots to attack a high-speed train and a Paris church.
France has discovered that ISIS is entrenched in the country far more than ever could be imagined. Security officials discovered a rocket launcher Monday night in Lyons, France while searching for 19-year-old terrorist Salah Abdeslam, who was born in Belgium and is a French national.
He reportedly was stopped during or after Friday night’s attacks but was released.
France said it is considering a ground offensive against ISIS as hundreds of police carried out 168 raids overnight and took 104 people into custody, including relatives of some of the suicide terrorists.
The French and Belgian reaction to what has been described here as “France’s 9/11” is fierce and is leaving President Barack Obama on the defense against Republican critics who are afraid that lack of a more vigorous offense is leaving the United States next in line.
The backlash in France and Belgian has sacred Muslims who are not part of the Islamic radical movement. Those who showed up at a rally in memory of the victims of Friday’s night barbaric murders were cursed, and even the bleeding heart Swedish government is putting a clamp on its open borders.
One French Muslim woman was quoted as saying she wishes she were a Jew so she would not be viewed suspiciously, but French Jews don’t feel any safer that they are not Muslims. Israeli once again is preparing for another wave of Aliyah from France.
Millions of Muslims have flooded all of Europe, and liberals are beginning to ask the inevitable question if it is too late to prevent the continent from becoming Islamic.
The lack of aggressive action was highlighted by the revelation that one of the ISIS suicide bombers Friday night, Ismael Omar Mostefai, who had been arrested seven times for larceny and had been targeted as radical Islamist.
Signs of planned attacks on Paris were evident three days before the attacks. Four ISIS-linked social media accounts posted messages with images of weapons, the Eiffel Tower and good wishes for the attacks, Fox News reported.
Moreover, Iraqi officials warned coalition countries of imminent ISIS attacks at least one day before the suicide bombers struck.