18 Facts About Abdelhamid Abaaoud

Abdelhamid Abaaoud was a Belgian-born Islamic terrorist who had spent time in Syria and was suspected of having organized multiple terror attacks in Belgium and France, and is known to have masterminded the November 2015 Paris attacks.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud died from wounds received during an armed raid conducted by French authorities in the suburb of Saint-Denis in north Paris.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of six children, was born on 8 April 1987 in Anderlecht, a municipality of Brussels, Belgium.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud was the son of Omar Abaaoud, who emigrated to Belgium from Morocco in 1975.

An article from 2015 said childhood friends claimed Abdelhamid Abaaoud had smoked "a lot of cannabis" during his teenage years.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud alone had spent time in at least three prisons, and had a number of arrests for assault, and other crimes.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud is reported to have joined a group within ISIL known as al-Battar Katiba, during the fight against Bashar al-Assad in 2013.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud returned to Belgium by the end of the same year.

Analysis of a telephone call established Abdelhamid Abaaoud was in contact with Mehdi Nemmouche during January 2014.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud was put under investigation as a possible link to four out of six attacks foiled in France since spring 2015.

Greek officials subsequently insisted that there was no evidence that Abdelhamid Abaaoud had been there.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud was later confirmed to be one of the three fatalities in the raid.

The prosecutor's office said that Abdelhamid Abaaoud's body was found in the apartment that had been targeted in the raid and that the identification was made using skin samples, according to some published reports.

However, other reports referred to identification by fingerprint samples taken from Abdelhamid Abaaoud's mutilated body which had been riddled with bullets and bits of shrapnel from a grenade explosion.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud's fingerprints were found on an AK-47 rifle found in an abandoned car.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud arrived at Dover by ferry despite being hunted by Belgian authorities.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud was thought by counter-terrorism officials to have been close to Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi, and the link between IS leadership in Syria and terror cells operating in Europe.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud was connected to Charaffe al Mouadan, who was based in Syria and a participating member of IS prior to his death on 24 December 2015.