Discarded cellphone led to Paris attacks ringleader

PARIS -- French investigators tracked down the alleged ringleader of last week's Paris bloodshed after receiving a startling tipoff: The Islamic militant wasn't in Syria but in Europe, plotting yet another attack. A discarded cellphone found near a bloodied concert hall led them to his cousin and then to a suburban Paris apartment where both died in a hail of bullets and explosions.

As a manhunt intensified Thursday for a fugitive connected to the carnage, details emerged about the intelligence operation that allowed authorities to zero in on Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian-Moroccan extremist they say orchestrated the attacks in Paris and four plots thwarted earlier this year.

The narrative provided by French officials raised questions about how a wanted militant suspected of involvement in multiple plots could slip into Europe undetected.

Investigators quickly identified Abaaoud as the architect of the deadly attacks in Paris, but they believed he had coordinated the assaults against a soccer stadium, cafes and a rock concert from the battlefields of Syria.

That situation changed Monday, when France received a tip from a non-European country Abaaoud had slipped into Europe through Greece, interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

As it turned out, not only was Abaaoud in Europe, but he was a 15-minute walk from the Stade de France stadium where three suicide bombers had blown themselves up during the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 129 people and wounded hundreds.

"We have strong reason to believe that this cell was about to commit massive terror attacks in France," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Thursday, speaking on public broadcaster France 2.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Abaaoud was traced to the apartment in Saint-Denis through phone taps and surveillance.

Two police officials briefed on the investigation said a cellphone dumped in a trash can outside the Bataclan concert hall -- where 89 people were killed -- proved crucial. It contained a text message sent about 20 minutes after the massacre began that read: "We're off, it's started."

The phone had contact information for Abaaoud's 26-year-old cousin, Hasna Aitboulahcen, one of the police officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information hasn't been released by investigators.

She and Abaaoud were killed as heavily armed SWAT teams raided the apartment in Saint-Denis early Wednesday, prosecutors said.