New evidence suggests ISIS, which has claimed responsibility for Friday’s Paris attacks, may be making good on its pledge to hide operatives among refugees entering Europe in the aftermath of the Syrian war.
A terrorist who blew himself up Friday at the Stade de France outside Paris landed with migrants on the Greek island of Leros on October 3, where he received an emergency Syrian passport under a false name: Ahmad al Muhammad, said an unnamed French senator briefed by the French Ministry of the Interior.
The senator said the Paris attacks were highly organized and planned long ago.
The bomber was among the terrorists who killed more than 120 people in gun and bomb attacks across Paris.
The fingerprints on that passport matched those of the Stade de France bomber, the French senator told CNN.
The revelation collides with legal requirements to give asylum to refugees fleeing persecution.
He was among a group posing as refugees who arrived with no papers, the senator said. Under new emergency provisions, he was given an emergency passport. He also provided a birth date to go with his false identity, September 10, 1990, the French senator said.
The fingerprint on the passport was not in the French database, the senator said, and therefore officials believe he was among a group of refugees and migrants.
The man traveled from Greece to Macedonia, then on Serbia and Croatia, where he registered in the Opatovac refugee camp, the lawmaker said.
European officials said they believe a professional new squad of terrorists are inserting themselves into some of these migrant voyages.
The two others who detonated themselves at the stadium carried false Turkish passports, the French senator said.
In October, an advocacy group said that the tide of migrants to Greece from Turkey had reached a new high for the year: 48,000 refugees daily over a five-day period.
The greatest proportion of refugees comes from Syria, where a brutal civil war over 4½ years has killed perhaps a quarter of a million people, reduced once-proud cities to rubble, and prompted more than 4 million people to flee.
Countries that have taken in Syrian refugees include Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Nations getting requests for Syrians seeking asylum include Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hungary and France.
About 1,500 Syrians have been admitted to the United States since the war started, according to U.S. officials in September.