Free Republic

A man who lent his flat to two jihadists involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks has been sentenced on appeal to four years in prison. Jawad Bendaoud, 32, was accused of harbouring Abdelhamid Abaaoud and Chakib Akrouh following the killings. He denied knowing they were attackers. He was cleared at the trial in 2018, but prosecutors immediately appealed. The co-ordinated suicide bombing and mass shootings around Paris killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more.

French intelligence officials were not aware until days after this month's deadly terror attack on Paris that the suspected mastermind of the carnage had a female cousin living just north of the capital, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal reports that information provided by Moroccan intelligence tied Hasna Houlahcen to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, enabling authorities to launch the raid that killed the two relatives this past Wednesday in Saint-Denis. However, that lapse and others has left France's security services with uncomfortable questions to answer as the country reels from a second deadly act of terror following the attacks...

If getting killed is what ISIS wants, let's give them what they want. Or rather, let's encourage the ass-kicking French to give them what they want - since America won't do it French officials confirmed this morning that they killed the ringleader of the Paris terror attacks in an early-morning police raid. The ringleader was Pierre Mondeaux, an evangelical Christian who led Wednesday night Bible studies and preached Jesus Christ to passers-by on Paris street corners. Just kidding! His name was Abdelhamid Abaaoud and he was a radical Islamic jihadist affilated with ISIS. Of course:

PARIS - A massive police raid Wednesdays killed the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks during a blitz-style sweep, two senior European intelligence officials said, after investigators followed leads that the fugitive militant was holed up north of the French capital and could be plotting another wave of violence. More than 100 police and soldiers stormed the building during a seven-hour siege that left two dead including the suspected overseer of the Paris bloodshed, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who had once boasted he could slip easily between Europe and the Islamic State strongholds in Syria.

French authorities have reportedly identified the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks as a 27-year-old Belgian, who may have also tried to orchestrate earlier thwarted attacks on trains and churches.

Greek police have arrested several people over alleged links to a suspected terror plot in Belgium. One of the men is alleged to have been in contact with the cell in Verviers, Belgium, where a shootout with police left two suspects dead on Thursday. Europe is on high alert after Islamist gunmen killed 17 people in Paris. More than 20 people have been arrested in Belgium, France and Germany. SNIP Earlier on Saturday, Belgian media said authorities were seeking Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Brussels resident of Moroccan origin suspected of being the ringleader of the jihadi cell, and in hiding...