Berlin: Names of three of the Paris attackers figure in massive documents leak from the Islamic state militant group media reports said today. Samy Aminour,Foued Mohamed-Aggad and Omar Ismail Mostefai – believed to have carried out the worst attack in Paris at the Bataclan theatre during a concert by a rock band in November – are among 22,000 ISIS recruits worldwide whose identities have been revealed in the recent leak.
As many as 90 people were killed using guns and suicide vests in the Bataclan attack during a concert by Eagles of Death Metal, whose singer and guitarist Jesse Hughes yesterday apologised for alleging that the club’s security guards were involved, saying he was struggling with trauma.
He said in a statement that “my suggestions that anyone affiliated with the Bataclan played a role in the events of November 13 are unfounded and baseless — and I take full responsibility for them”.
The ISIS files, obtained by German, UK and Syrian opposition media, are said to identify thousands of recruits from at least 40 countries, and German officials have said the files can be assumed to be genuine. The files indicate that the three men who attacked the Bataclan entered ISIS territory in 2013 and 2014, German public broadcaster WDR, that has obtained the documents, was cited in a report by the BBC.
The identity of 29-year-old French national Mostefai from a poor Paris suburb, was confirmed using a severed fingertip found at the Bataclan. Amimour, a 28-year-old former bus driver from the Paris suburb of Drancy, and 23-year-old Mohamed-Aggad from Strasbourg were the other two.
Files were first published online, with documents in Arabic, by Zaman Al-Wasl – a Qatari-based Syrian news website. The documents include questionnaires a would-be jihadist must answer giving details like nationality, blood type and “previous jihad experience”.
Sixteen Britons reportedly appear in the files, including Junaid Hussain and Reyaad Khan, who were killed in September in Syria by a drone strike, the report said. Copies of the documents were broadcast by ‘Sky News’, reportedly obtained from a man who uses the name Abu Hamed, a former Free Syrian Army member who joined ISIS. He stole the memory stick of documents and handed them over in Turkey to a journalist, explaining that he left because Islamic rules had collapsed inside the group.
Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere earlier said the information contained in the files could help to prosecute ISIS fighters, and help prevent future recruitment.
