Alicante-based terrorist 'took orders from Paris attack leader'

Abdeljail Aït El-Kaïd (pictured), a Moroccan living in the Alicante area, left the country in 2014 to join the DAESH, or so-called Islamic State in Raqqa, Syria, the capital of the terrorist organisation's self-proclaimed caliphate, for combat training.

During his week-long stay in the Middle Eastern country, he met Abdelhamid Abaaoud, thought to have been the brains behind the multiple massacres in Paris and who has since been shot dead by police.

Abaaoud ordered Aït El-Kaïd's immediate return to Spain, and he was expected to be involved in the attacks in the French capital.

But the Alicante resident was arrested in Warsaw, Poland en route back from Syria via Serbia, thanks to the Spanish Guardia Civil having tipped off Polish authorities.

This was in June 2014, and Aït El-Kaïd has been in prison in Spain ever since.

Spanish authorities are digging into his affairs for more information, since they are certain he did not return from Syria alone.

The accused was travelling with another Moroccan terrorist, Reda Hame, who had also been ordered by Abaaoud to return to Europe.

Hame had been instructed to carry out an attack in a Paris concert hall, which may have been the Bataclan in the 10^th arrondissement, but was arrested before he was even able to acquire the weapons he needed to do so.

It was Aït El-Kaïd who confessed to Spanish police that he and his companion, whom he named, had been returning to Europe on Abaaoud's orders, and revealed Hame's intentions and the fact he was on his way to France.

The Guardia Civil informed French authorities, who kept Hame under surveillance from a distance and arrested him upon arrival in the country.

Hame had travelled through Turkey, Poland, the Czech Republic and The Netherlands, but had separated from Aït El-Kaïd after Turkey since the latter entered Poland via Belgrade.

It transpired that Intelligence services did not have Reda Hame on record and it was not known he had travelled to Syria.

Barely 6,000 foreign fighters are listed out of the 25,000 who have joined DAESH in Syria and Iraq after travelling from the west, says Interpol.

The arrests show how Abaaoud had been planning the attacks for some time.

Known by his 'combat name' of Abu Omar Sousi, Abdelhamid Abaaoud was killed on Wednesday during the police raid in Saint Dénis in the Paris suburbs.

His cousin Hasna Aïtboulahcen, 26, once known for being a 'party girl' who dressed in western clothing and who became sucked into Jihad in the last two or three years, perished in a Saint Dénis apartment after a man who was with her either detonated his own, or Hasna's explosive vest.

Abaaoud, 28, was born in Belgium to Moroccan parents and was very high up in the DAESH hierarchy, taking his orders from a spokesman known as Abu Mohammed al-Adnani who had instructed Abaaoud to plan attacks in Europe.

Abaaoud was also known as Abu Omar al-Baljiki ('Abu Omar the Belgian') and had been on the Intelligence service radar for some time – especially after appearing in the DAESH publication Dabiq in February and revealing he had been planning attacks a month ago in Brussels along with two other terrorists who had trained in Syria.

He also bragged about how he had managed to return from Syria 'without any trouble' despite his face being known to security forces trough a video showing him driving a pick-up truck.

The truck contained the blood-soaked bodies of people taken prisoner by DAESH, killed and tortured, and the footage of Abaaoud transporting him earned him the nickname of 'the butcher of Raqqa'.