Ringleader of Paris Attacks Killed, but His Travels Worry Intel Experts

European and U.S. intelligence officials expressed alarm that the supposed architect of the deadly Paris attacks last week was able to slip so easily back and forth between Syria and the heart of Western Europe, even as French officials confirmed Thursday that the Islamic State terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud had been killed in a raid in a Paris suburb.

During the days between last Friday’s attacks Abaaoud’s death on Wednesday, French and American officials had said the Belgian of Moroccan descent was believed to be in Islamic State’s Syrian base and that he had even been the target of a Western airstrike there as recently as a month ago.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve admitted Thursday that he and other European officials had no idea Abaaoud was actually in France, saying it was days after the attacks that “an intelligence service of a country outside Europe” had alerted French officials the suspect was believed to be in Greece.

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“This situation is stunning on a number of fronts,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a terror analyst who edits the Long War Journal at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Clearly everybody thought this guy was in Syria. He’s a known quantity as a terrorist and yet he managed to evade a massive manhunt and was able make his way to the north of Paris.”

Mr. Joscelyn said the development shows how different the Islamic State’s external attack posture is in comparison to al Qaeda, which ISIS is largely seen to have supplanted. Al Qaeda pursued international plots using so-called “sleeper cells” of operatives whose involvement depended on the secrecy of their identities.

“Consider that nobody knew Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11 until six months after the attacks,” Mr. Joscelyn said. “Abaaoud, if he really is as important to the Paris attacks as the French are saying, is the exact opposite. Everybody knew he was an ISIS logistics guy in Europe, and yet he still slipped past the West’s defenses,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

Mr. Joscelyn did not discount the possibility that ISIS propagandists intentionally sought to create a cloud of misinformation about Abaaoud’s whereabouts earlier this year by publishing the Dabiq profile that suggested he was in Syria.

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