A full scale panic broke out at several sites around Paris as evil pranksters set off firecrackers at some locations, including a makeshift memorial for those who died in the terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, authorities across the continent are on the lookout for a man directly involved in the attacks.
Late Sunday evening, French National Police issued an arrest warrant for Belgian-born Abdeslam Salah, according to the official Twitter account of the police. “This individual is dangerous, do not interact with him,” the police said in an alert about him.
t’s possible that suspects directly involved in Friday’s Paris terror attacks remain at large, a French counterterrorism source close to the investigation told CNN on Sunday.
A number of arrests linked to the attacks have been made in Belgium, but it is unclear whether they include the occupant or occupants of an abandoned car with weapons inside found in eastern Paris, the source said.
Those revelations come as new details about the attackers emerge.
Another of the attackers was believed to have made his way to Belgium via the Balkans and had applied for asylum in several European countries.
One of three bombers who detonated themselves at the Stade de France late Friday arrived on the Greek island of Leros on October 3 among numerous Syrian refugees, Amanpour reported, citing an unnamed French senator who was briefed by the Ministry of the Interior.
The man declared himself to be Syrian, said his name was Ahmad al Mohammad and was, under new procedures set up to help refugees, issued a new emergency passport or similar document.
From Leros, he traveled to Macedonia, Serbia and then Croatia, Amanpour reported.
The fingerprints from the bomber at the Stade de France match those taken when the man was issued his emergency travel document on Leros.
The two other suicide bombers at the stadium carried false Turkish passports, Amanpour reported.
The procedures used to process the refugees in Balkan countries are slipshod, according to the New York Times:
Most of those who enter countries on the so-called Balkan corridor for migrants — Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia — are registered with authorities. Their data are checked against Interpol records, and their fingerprints and photos are taken. But, many people tell officials that they’ve lost their identity papers, and they can give false names and other information, including their country of origin.
A large majority of migrants declare themselves as Syrians from the war-torn country, although they have no documents to prove it, Serbian police say. Syrian refugees have a better chance of getting asylum in Germany than those classified as economic migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan.
In Serbia, some 490,000 migrants have passed through this year, and many say they don’t have documents — making it impossible to check for terrorist connections or criminal histories, to verify their backgrounds, Serbian officials said Sunday. There are no recorded cases of people being turned away after random checks anywhere in the Balkan migrant corridor.
That may be because the corridor states want migrants to pass through quickly, without getting stuck in their territory for a long time before reaching rich EU states such as Germany, Sweden or France.
“No one can know for certain where they come from, their true identity or if their documents are genuine,” Serbian labor minister Aleksandar Vulin said. “The Paris suspects have not been registered anywhere as terrorists, so Serbia could not have known that they represent a danger.”
A hope and a prayer appear to be the means of vetting the refugees by Balkan countries.
Not surprisingly, the people of western Europe are lining up on opposing sides of the immigration issue with many urging a drastic slowdown or halt to accepting refugees — especially from Syria — and others claiming that the hundreds of thousands of people on their way to Europe shouldn’t suffer for the actions of a few. With even French officials calling for “tolerance” toward the newcomers, you know which way that argument is going to be decided.
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