They were looking for him in Syria. He was already in Paris

He moved about freely for months, entering and leaving Europe while law enforcement was searching for him in Syria

They were looking for him in Syria. He was already in Paris. Attack on Europe

Born in 1987 in Anderlecht, Brussels, Abdelhamid Abaaoud was the son of a Moroccan merchant who had brought his family to Belgium in the 1970s and, hoping for a better future for his children, had enrolled them in the city’s most prestigious Catholic school. Abaaoud attended the school for a year, then returned to the streets of Molenbeek, where he began hanging out with the group of friends who would later form the network behind the Paris attacks. He was convicted of robbery and, while in prison in 2010, met Salah Abdeslam.

He left for Syria between 2013 and 2014, joined ISIS, and became one of the faces of its European propaganda. He took his younger brother Younès, who was thirteen, with him. Belgian and French intelligence services knew of him and were searching for him, but Abaaoud moved undisturbed across Europe for months, entering and leaving the continent while police were searching for him in Syria.

He coordinated the November 13, 2015, attacks from Paris, where he was already in hiding. He was killed in the Saint-Denis raid five days after the attacks. He was twenty-eight years old. His father, who had filed a complaint against him for recruiting his thirteen-year-old son, said: “He destroyed our families. I never want to see him again.”