Even Abdelhamid Abaaoud’s own family prayed for his death, and on Thursday they got their wish when the Belgian jihadist behind the Paris attacks was confirmed killed in a French police raid.
The 28-year-old of Moroccan origin had recently boasted of evading police dragnets in Europe, and taunted European authorities from what was assumed to be an ISIS base in Syria.
The effect on his family was profound, with his sister Yasmina telling Flemish newspapers in 2014 that “we can only pray that he is really dead” after it was — mistakenly — reported that he was killed in Syria.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls hailed the death of the “mastermind” of last week’s atrocities, after prosecutors said Abaaoud body had been identified following Wednesday’s raid in Saint Denis.
In the past, Abbaoud liked to taunt the police, boasting of a close call he had when he passed through a European checkpoint as the police studied a photo of him.
“The kuffar (unbelievers) were blinded by Allah. I was even stopped by an officer who contemplated me so as to compare me to the picture, but he let me go, as he did not see the resemblance!” Abaaoud told the ISIS group magazine Dabiq.
“This was nothing but a gift from Allah,” he said.He also bragged about escaping from Europe after the Belgian police shot dead two of his fellow militants in the eastern town of Verviers as they broke up a cell planning attacks on security personnel earlier in 2015.
“My name and picture were all over the news yet I was able to stay in their homeland, plan operations against them, and leave safely when doing so became necessary,” he said.
It was not yet clear when Abaaoud had returned to Europe from Syria to coordinate the Paris attacks.Abaaoud had first popped up on the radar of Belgian security forces after featuring in an ISIS video, laughing as he drove a car which dragged mutilated bodies behind it.
But it was after the Verviers raid, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January in Paris, that Abaaoud’s name began to widely circulate.
In February, Abaaoud, who was reported at one time to be in Greece, claimed responsibility for the plot against police officers and said he had joined ISIS in Syria.
Abaaoud — who hails from Brussels’ Molenbeek district — was then sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison in July for running a network to recruit jihadists to Syria.
Born in Molenbeek in 1987, he goes by the noms de guerre Abou Omar Soussi, after the name of the family home in southwest region of Morocco, and Abou Omar al-Baljiki, meaning Abou Omar the Belgian.
His family were horrified when, in 2014, Abelhamid convinced his younger brother Younes, then 13 years old, to join him in Syria and the boy was dubbed the “the world’s youngest jihadist” by some newspapers.
“Why in the name of God, would he want to kill innocent Belgians Our family owes everything to this country,” said Omar Abaaoud, whose family moved to Belgium 40 years ago from Morocco.
“Abdelhamid has brought shame on our family. Our lives have been destroyed... I never want to see him again.”
