2023-10-01 22:23:41
Mediapart returned to the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015. An investigation which exclusively highlights “the hitherto hidden action of the DGSE (General Directorate of External Security)” in the elimination, November 18, 2015 in Saint-Denis, of the Belgian-Moroccan jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, considered to be the mastermind of “the worst killing committed in France since the Second World War”.
Like other media at the time, Mediapart claims that a “woman named Soraya” provided valuable information to the Anti-Terrorism Sub-Directorate (SDAT) of the judicial police on Hasna Aït Boulahcen, who is trying to hide her cousin, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. “Soraya also gives details of new attacks that might take place.”
“What has never been said: the DGSE has an eavesdrop which supports Soraya’s testimony (…) The eavesdropping concerns Hasna Aït Boulhacen”, Abaaoud’s cousin, specifies the investigation site. The DGSE also had a “mole” within the Islamic State organization, who would have confirmed “the relationship between the Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud and the Frenchwoman Hasna Aït Boulhacen”.
As a reminder, four months following the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015, RMC and BFMTV put forward the trail of a “young woman”, presented as a friend of Hasna Aït Boulahcen, who would have led the police to Abaaoud’s hideout in Saint-Denis. In her story, the “young woman” even claimed to have had a discussion with the terrorist, following the Paris attacks.
Morocco’s role in the location of Abaaoud passed over in silence
In their investigation, RMC and BFMTV had ignored any contribution from Moroccan reports. For the record, the former Minister of the Interior, Bernard Cazeneuve, confirmed, only on November 16, 2015, “that a country outside Europe” reported that Abdelhamid Abaaoud would have stayed for a time in Greece, but without specifying what country it was.
The French parties – media and official – ignored the fact that the Moroccan police had laid their hands, in October 2015, on Yassine, the younger brother of Abdelhamid Abaaoud. An arrest revealed by a Moroccan security source, a week following the Paris attacks.
However, faced with this French government silence, “a Moroccan security official” insisted on emphasizing the role of the kingdom, in declarations to RFI. “Morocco helped to alert Paris of the presence of the Belgian-Moroccan Abdelhamid Abbaoud on French territory and thus contributed to triggering the operation of the police in Saint-Denis, in the Paris suburbs, during which he was shot. According to this information, Morocco also allowed France to move very quickly on the Belgian track,” Public Radio wrote at the time.
If in November 2015, the kingdom had opted to act under cover of anonymity to promote its action in the neutralization of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the method has since changed. On April 6, 2021, the spokesperson for the Directorate General of National Security (DGSN) revealed that Moroccan intelligence transmitted precise information to the French on a planned terrorist operation targeting a church in Montpellier. A communication which comes only two days following the arrest by the French authorities of five women in Béziers, thus denoting Morocco’s desire to make public its role in the abortion of the terrorist project.
Thanks following the information provided by Morocco which allowed the FBI and the CIA to arrest, on January 19 of the same year, an American soldier, Cole James Bridges, a convert to Islam who was planning to commit an attack in the name of Daesh. Spain has also recognized, for years, the kingdom’s contribution to dismantling terrorist cells.
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