ISIS leader with links to Paris attack killed by airstrike in Syria

ISIS leader Charaffe al Mouadan, who the coalition says had direct contacts with the suspected ringleader behind the terror attacks in Paris, was killed by an airstrike in Syria on December 24, coalition forces announced Tuesday.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was killed in a police raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis last month, had direct contacts, the coalition says, with al Mouadan before the attacks took place, which killed more than 120 people.

The coalition identified al Mouadan, 27, as an ISIS leader and one of 10 high-value targets killed by coalition forces in the past month.

The coalition says he was actively planning more international attacks.

A source close to the investigation into the Paris attacks told CNN that al Mouadan was in touch with the Paris plotters days before the attack. The source said that investigators are still determining the role, if any, he played in the attacks.

The source said that one of the surviving concertgoers at the Bataclan music venue told investigators that one of the gunmen asked another of the attackers whether he was going to call an individual called “Souleymane” as the attack was ongoing. The second attacker replied, ‘No,’ and chided the other attacker, telling him to speak in Arabic rather than in French. Souleymane is one of the known aliases of al Mouadan.

Al Mouadan was a close associate of Samy Amimour, one of the Bataclan gunmen, according to the source, who said both were investigated in 2012 for suspected terrorist activity. According to Le Parisien newspaper, which on December 21 first reported details about the discussion of a call to Souleymane inside the Batclan, al Mouadan traveled from France to Syria in 2013.

The source said that French inspectors don’t suspect al Mouadan of having a senior role in ISIS, despite the coalition labelling him an ISIS leader.