Paris massacre ringleader used migrant crisis to get into France, PM says
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The suspected mastermind of last week's Paris massacre, and some of the other attackers, had exploited the Syrian refugee crisis to slip into France unnoticed, Prime Minister Manuel Valls revealed Friday, the same day the French Senate approved extending the nation's state of emergency by three months.
It also emerged that Abdelhamid Abaaoud may have even taken part in the attacks on the ground in Paris, as a French security official said a surveillance camera captured the alleged ringleader inside a nearby subway station as the massacre unfolded. Valls also said another person died from the attacks, bringing the total number of dead to 130.
A third body was found after Wednesday's apartment raid north of Paris that left Abaaoud and his cousin dead, the French prosecutor's office reported Friday. A police source told Agence France-Presse the cousin, Hasna Aitboulahcen, did not blow herself up, as was previously reported. The suicide bomber was a man, the source said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Abaaoud was seen at the Croix de Chavaux metro station in the suburb of Montreuil at 10:14 p.m. on Nov. 13, the French security official told The Associated Press. The black Seat car used in the attacks was found abandoned near the subway station, investigators say.
Valls said some of the Paris attackers had taken advantage of the massive influx of migrants into Europe escaping war in the Middle East.
"These individuals took advantage of the refugee crisis... of the chaos, perhaps, for some of them to slip in" to France, he told French TV. "Others were in Belgium already. And others, I must remind you, were in France."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Police now turn their attention to two other suspects who are believed to have participated in the attacks. Police have identified one of them as Salah Abdeslam, who grew up in the same Belgian district as Abaaoud, the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek.
There was no indication Abdeslam escaped to neighboring Spain or tried to do so, Spanish Interior Miniister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said. He told Antena 3 television that security officials from several countries were called together in Paris to discuss the possibility that Abdeslam might try to cross into a country bordering France.
Spanish police say French authorities sent a bulletin to officers across Europe asking them to watch out for a Citroen Xsara car that could be carrying Abdeslam.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News' Catherine Herridge and Greg Palkot and The Associated Press contributed to this report.