Here's What We Know About The Paris Attackers

Five dead attackers have been identified, but two suspects are still at large.

The manhunt for a suspected Paris attacker widened on Tuesday as authorities pieced together a more detailed picture of the group of terrorists who killed at least 129 people last week.

Authorities searching for Salah Abdeslam -- the only identified suspect still believed to be alive -- have announced that they're now looking for another fugitive linked to the attacks, according to The Associated Press. The potential ninth attacker has not been identified, but authorities reported that the person could have been traveling with Abdeslam.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and French authorities believe three coordinated teams of terrorists are responsible for the massacre, according to Paris prosecutor François Molins. Seven of the known attackers are now dead after detonating suicide explosives.

On Tuesday, French National Police tweeted out a call for information about an unidentified man they say is one of the dead attackers. "This individual is the deceased attacker in one of the terror plots committed on November 13 at the Stade de France," the notice reads, translated from French.

Meanwhile, authorities across Europe are conducting raids to look for accomplices. Prosecutors in Belgium, where several of the attackers had ties, announced charges against two additional men for their alleged involvement in the bombings and shootings last Friday.

The two men are Mohammed Amri, 27, and Hamza Attou, 21, who allegedly drove to Paris and picked up Abdeslam. The men's lawyers say the two did drive Abdeslam back to Brussels, but deny they were involved in the attacks. Authorities said the same ingredients used in the Paris bombs turned up in a search of the men's residence.

The accused ringleader of the attacks, a radicalized Belgian believed to be a recruiter for the Islamic State, supposedly organized earlier terror plots in Western Europe and was targeted by Western airstrikes in Syria last month, according to The New York Times.

In addition to suspected attacker Salah Abdeslam, five of the deceased attackers and the alleged mastermind have been identified so far. Here's what we know about them.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the child of Moroccan immigrants, grew up in Brussels and is thought to be the mastermind behind the Paris attacks.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the child of Moroccan immigrants, grew up in Brussels and is thought to be the mastermind behind the Paris attacks.
Handout . / Reuters

Abdelhamid Abaaoud

Authorities have said that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28, is a radicalized Belgian who was the ringleader of the Paris attacks. He is believed to be in Syria, where he’s allegedly fought alongside ISIS.

Abaaoud is well-known to European officials, who say he's connected to previous plots and failed attacks, including a plan to assassinate police officers and an August incident in which passengers subdued a gunman on a train bound for Paris.

Western military forces targeted him in airstrikes against the Islamic State as recently as last month, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Abaaoud’s father has accused him of kidnapping of his 13-year-old brother and bringing him to Syria to wage jihad.

Appearing in ISIS propaganda videos and in the group's English-language magazine, Dabiq, Abaaoud has bragged about evading Western authorities and urged Muslims worldwide to join him in Syria. One explicit video shows him in a pickup truck in Syria that is dragging mutilated bodies behind it.

Tried in absentia in Belgium, Abaaoud was sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting for the terrorist organization. Before becoming an extremist, he had reportedly been locked up for theft.

French police patrol at the Place de la République in Paris on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015.
French police patrol at the Place de la République in Paris on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015.
Jeff J Mitchell via Getty Images

Ismail Omar Mostefai

French officials identified Ismael Omar Mostefai as one of the Paris attackers after his suicide belt exploded at the Bataclan theater. He was a 29-year-old Frenchman who was being monitored for links to Islamic radicalism, Molins said on Saturday.

Authorities were able to identify Mostefai from a piece of his finger they found after the suicide bombing, Le Monde reported. They also found a weapon that they traced to the suburb where he grew up.

Mostefai's father, a brother and other family members were being questioned Sunday.

"It's a crazy thing, it's madness," his brother told AFP after turning himself in to police.

The brother had cut ties with Mostefai years ago and said he was unaware of his radicalization, AFP reported. He believed Mostefai had gone to Algeria with his daughter.

The brother's neighbor supported his claims. "[Mostefai's brother and his wife] were an extraordinary couple. They had been disconnected from any activity for a long time," the man told news channel iTélé.

Mostefai, born in the Chartres region of France in 1985, allegedly spent a few months in Syria sometime between 2013 and 2014, Le Monde reported. A senior Turkish official said on Monday that he had entered Turkey in 2013. The official also said that Turkey had warned France about Mostefai in December 2014 and again in June.

Mostefai's acquaintances seemed unaware of his plans. "He was really, really, really discreet," one of his neighbors told iTélé.

Brahim Abdeslam

Brahim Abdeslam, 31, is believed to have been the suicide bomber at the Boulevard Voltaire. The Frenchman lived and worked in the Brussels immigrant neighborhood of Molenbeek. He was known to be involved in theft and drug trafficking, according to Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique.

Until recently, Brahim Abdeslam had owned a bar in his neighborhood that his neighbors complained about. Police who’d searched the bar in August noticed the “strong smell of drugs” and found partially smoked joints in ashtrays. Abdeslam sold the bar in September.

Salah Abdeslam

France's national police on Sunday tweeted a wanted poster for Salah Abdeslam, Brahim's brother, who was born in Brussels in 1989. Salah managed the bar owned by his older brother, according to Reuters.

Police say he rented a Volkswagen that was found near the Bataclan.

After the attack, police stopped Salah and two other men at a checkpoint near the Belgian border. Authorities allowed them to continue on their journey, realizing only later that they’d let a suspected attacker slip through their grasp.

The two men in the car with Salah have been arrested, though they deny involvement in the attack.

Authorities have carried out raids to find Salah in his home neighborhood in Brussels and in the western German city of Aachen, but the hunt for the most wanted man in Europe has so far been a bust.

Authorities also detained Salah and Brahim's brother, Mohamed Abdeslam, but they later released him. He has denied any involvement in the attacks and said he hoped Salah would turn himself in to authorities.

Abdeslam told reporters in front of his home on Monday that he has worked for the city government for years without problems, and had "no links whatsoever to what happened."

He also said how shocked his family remains over some family members being linked to the attacks.

"My family and I have been touched by what has happened,"Abdeslam said. "We have learned about this through the media, like many of you. It didn't cross our minds that one of our brothers could have been linked to these attacks. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. But you have to understand that we have a mother, a family, and despite everything, he remains their child."

Bilal Hadfi

Frenchman Bilal Hadfi, 20, was identified as one of the attackers at the Stade de France. European intelligence officials told The Washington Post that he had spent time in Syria.

Samy Amimour

Paris-born Samy Amimour, 28, took part in the raid on the Bataclan, French officials said. RTL reported he had been charged with terrorism offenses in 2012 and was put under judicial control, but he violated the terms. Authorities issued an international warrant for Amimour's arrest in 2013, the same year he traveled to Syria.

Ahmad Al-Mohammad

Authorities also found a Syrian passport near the Stade de France explosion site, Molins announced Saturday. The passport allegedly belonged to Ahmad Al-Mohammad, who was born in 1990 in Syria. He hadn't been on French authorities' radar prior to the attack.

The Serbian interior ministry said Sunday that Al-Mohammad crossed from Turkey to the Greek island of Leros on Oct. 3 with many refugees. He was reportedly traveling with a second man, Mohammed Almuhamed, according to The Guardian.

After Al-Mohammad arrived in Athens on Oct. 8, authorities did not continue tracking him, the AP reported. His passport was registered in both Croatia and Serbia, where he ultimately sought asylum, per The Washington Post.

It is still not clear whether the passport is real or fake.

Potential Ninth Attacker

On Tuesday, authorities revealed that an unidentified third person traveling with the Abdeslam brothers is still at large, and might have been directly involved in the attacks.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled one of the alleged assailants last names. He is Bilal Hadfi, not Hafdi.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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