Links between Brussels and Paris Attackers

uncovering the Links Between the Brussels and Paris Attackers

At least two of the attackers are believed to have had roles in both plots.

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“There are still many people involved who were part of the Zerkani network, who were convicted in absentia — at least five to 10 — and we don’t know where they are or what they might do,” Mr. Brisard said.

While they could turn out to be minor players, they could also emerge as able organizers of new assaults. Among Mr. Zerkani’s recruits, prosecutors say, were Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the on-the-ground commander of the Paris attacks, and Reda Kriket, who was arrested on March 24 in a suburb of Paris. Mr. Kriket has been accused of being in the final stages of planning an attack in France involving “an arsenal of weapons and explosives of an unprecedented size,” said François Molins, the Paris prosecutor.

From the ammunition and material found it appears that a highly lethal attack was averted. Mr. Kriket had Kalashnikov assault rifles, a submachine gun, pistols, ammunition and four boxes containing thousands of small steel balls.

Four men in touch with Mr. Kriket, who were arrested in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, had in their possession 45 kilograms of ammunition, according to the Dutch Public Broadcaster, NOS. That is enough ammunition for 2,500 rounds, which is enough to supply as many as a dozen gunmen with multiple magazines.

Mr. Kriket’s connection to the Paris and Brussels cells that carried out the attacks in those cities was not clear, and experts have differing views, but it raises the possibility that there are other, similar cells in France and Belgium as well as farther afield.

“The cells are kept quite separate,” said Claude Moniquet, a former French intelligence officer who now works in Belgium.

He added that so far investigators had not learned much about Mr. Kriket either from Salah Abdeslam, who prosecutors say was the only one of the 10 men directly involved in the Paris attacks to survive, or from Mr. Abrini, who was arrested on Friday and is accused of being involved in the logistics for the Paris attacks. Prosecutors say Mr. Abrini has also acknowledged accompanying the two suicide bombers at the Brussels airport.

Western intelligence and counterterrorism officials say their working assumption is that there are Islamic State networks in two or more European countries in addition to those in France and Belgium.

“Other Islamic State cells are highly likely to be in existence across Western Europe, preparing and organizing further operations, and awaiting direction from the group’s central leadership to execute,” said Matthew Henman, the head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London.