Paris attackers listed in leaked IS files

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BERLIN, March 11, (Agencies): A trove of leaked Islamic State group documents features the names of three of the jihadist militants behind the deadly attack on the Paris Bataclan theatre, German media reported Friday. Among the thousands of IS registration papers were those of Samy Amimour, Foued Mohamed-Aggad and Omar Ismail Mostefai, said public broadcasters NDR and WDR and Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The three assailants, using guns and suicide vests, killed 90 people at the Bataclan, the deadliest attack in the bloody rampage that claimed 130 lives across the French capital on Nov 13. The German research team said it had now obtained data on several thousand IS militants from a total of 22,000 documents, many of them doubles, which were earlier also obtained by British broadcaster Sky News They contain the names, addresses, phone numbers and family contacts of jihadis who joined IS, as well as their blood type, mother’s maiden name, “level of sharia understanding” and previous experience.

The fighters listed in the cache of documents came from across Europe and from the United States, Russia, Indonesia, South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago, the German media team said. Germany’s federal police said Thursday it had access to the same type of documents and considered them highly likely to be authentic, but some experts have voiced doubts or urged caution. The German report said some papers also made indirect reference to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the organiser of the Paris killings who recruited old friends and other small-time delinquents to help him carry out the attacks. Omar Mostefai, a 29-year-old French national from a poor Paris suburb, blew himself up at the Bataclan music venue. His identity was confirmed using a severed fingertip found at the scene. Another Bataclan suicide bomber was 28-year-old Samy Amimour, a former bus driver from the Paris suburb of Drancy, while the third was Foued Mohamed-Aggad, 23, from Strasbourg.

The report said the papers showed that Mohamed-Aggad had arrived in IS territory on December 18, 2013 with an unusually large group of French jihadists that included 14 men and their families. Counterterrorism investigators say they are beginning to pore through the cache of documents detailing what could be the most comprehensive look into the recruiting networks luring fighters into the Islamic State group.

Shiraz Maher of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization said Friday that some of the names in the documents also appear to be of women but it was unclear whether the names could simply be of personal references. He has seen dozens of the documents. Robert Wainwright, director of the European police organization, said Europol is sharing its own database with member states to allow them to cross-check names of nationals who may appear in the documents

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