Salah Abdeslam (born 15 September 1989) was a member of the Islamic State from Belgium who was one of the perpetrators of the November 2015 Paris attacks. From 13 November 2015 to 18 March 2016, he was on the run in Europe, and he was later wounded and captured by the Belgian police. He was the man responsible for terrorism in France and Belgium.
Biography[]
Abdeslam was born on September 15, 1989 in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, Belgium to a family of Sunni Muslims, and he was the brother of Brahim Abdeslam. The two of them owned the "Les Beguines" bar together, but it was shut down after it was found out that some of the drinks were spiked. Salah and Brahim became radicalized at one point, and both of them moved to France, where they established contact with Salah's childhood friend Abdelhamid Abaaoud and his terrorist cell. Abaaoud's cell consisted mostly of people of Maghrebi descent from Molenbeek, and it grew to be a large number of people. Salah rented a Volkswagen Polo supermini car in late 2015, and it was used as a getaway car in the November 2015 Paris attacks. He was one of the restaurant shooters in the attacks, killing people in Le Petit Cambodge and Le Carillon restaurants before fleeing. His brother Brahim blew himself up at a bistro, and Salah was the only one of the eight attackers to leave Paris alive. Abdeslam was at large, and his Polo was found near the Bataclan theatre and taken away by a French bomb squad. Abdeslam escaped a French roadblock at Cambrai and made it across the border into Belgium with Hamza Attou and Mohammed Amri, two Muslims who were later charged with terrorism for assisting his escape. Abdeslam travelled to Syria in 2014 to fight in the Syrian Civil War. His brother Mohamed,was not linked to the attacks. Abdelslam also became a criminal. In 2010 he was arrested for armed robbery. In 2011 he was arrested for breaking and entering. In the spring of 2015,Abdeslam was arrested for drug trafficking. Between 2009 and 2014,Abdeslam worked as a mechanic in Brussels. He returned to Belgium sometime in 2014. He also drank alcohol and frequented gay bars. His weapons were Kalashnikovs,hand grenades,TATP and suitcases for the bombs. Abdelslam's accomplices were Mohamed Belkaid an Algerian who was linked to him, as well as Sofiane Ayari. On 2 October 2015,he met a Swede of Syrian/Palestinian descent called Osama Krayem in Ulm,Germany.
On 20 November 2015 he called three friends, saying that he was hiding in Brussels, Belgium, where local Islamic State members were unhappy about his failure to detonate his faulty suicide vest. His brother Mohamed pleaded for him to turn himself in repeatedly before, but Abdeslam informed his three friends that he was desperately trying to make it to Syria. On 22 November police spotted him driving in Liege and failed to arrest him, and police again failed to capture him while trying to intercept him at Barchon as he headed on a motorway towards Germany. The terror level threat in Brussels was extremely high, with several cities being on lockdown due to the threat of a Paris-style series of terror attacks. However, on 26 November the terror level was lowered, although the Belgians continued their manhunt for Abdeslam, who was still at large. Some reports in the following days said that he had fled to Syria, with French authorities acting on that theory; Belgian authorities refused to ascertain the theory. On 18 March 2016, an unusually large pizza order was made in a Molenbeek apartment; it was reported to the police, who found the woman who made the order, two men, children, and Abdeslam, whom they arrested alongside Monir Ahmed Alaaj. Abdeslam later informed Belgian authorities that he was planning another attack; the 2016 Brussels bombings occurred on 22 March, killing 27 people. His trial took place in 2017. On 23 April 2018, Abdeslam was convicted of terrorist murder with a sentence of 20 years in prison.He and his acomplice,Sofiane Ayari,better know as Amine Choukri and Monir Ahmed Alaaj,was a Tunisian citizen who was linked to the Paris and Brussels attacks. He is now in a prison in France or Belgium.