Fremch police also find mobile phone of fugitive believed to have taken part in attacks
PARIS/BRUSSELS: A suspected explosive belt was found dumped near Paris on Monday and the mobile phone of a fugitive believed to have taken part in the attacks on Nov 13 was detected in two locations in the city, a source close to the investigation said.
France and Belgium have launched a manhunt following the attacks that killed 130 people, with a focus on Brussels barkeeper Salah Abdeslam, 26, who returned to the city from Paris hours after the attacks and is still at large.
Abdeslam’s mobile phone was detected after the attacks in the 18th district in the north of Paris, near an abandoned car that he had rented, and then later in Chatillon in the south, the source said on Monday.
Detectives were examining what appeared to be an explosive belt found in a litter bin in the town of Montrouge, south of the capital and not far from Chatillon.
The source said it was too soon to say whether the belt had been in contact with Abdeslam, whose elder brother blew himself during the gun and suicide bomb attacks.
In Belgium, prosecutors said they had charged a fourth person with terrorist offences linked to the Paris attacks.
They released all 15 others detained in police raids on Sunday. Two of five people detained on Monday were also released while the other three had their custody prolonged.
Soldiers patrolled the streets of Brussels, which has been in lockdown since Saturday.
French jets from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier struck Islamic State targets in Iraq on Monday while Britain offered France the use of an air base in Cyprus to hit the militants behind the Paris attacks.
French President Francois Hollande met British Prime Minister David Cameron in Paris as part of efforts to rally support for the fight against Islamic State, which claimed the Nov. 13 attacks. Hollande is also due to visit Washington and Moscow this week.
France has intensified its bombings in Syria since the attacks in Paris.
French jets taking off from the country’s flagship in the eastern Mediterranean destroyed targets in Ramadi and Mosul in Iraq on Monday in support of Iraqi forces on the ground, the French armed forces said in a statement. — Reuters