Fall of Raqqa, Mosul Kindles Hopes of Finding Some Paris, Brussels Attacks Ringleaders

Damage is seen inside the departure terminal following the March 22, 2016 bombing at the Brussels airport. Reuters photo
Damage is seen inside the departure terminal following the March 22, 2016 bombing at the Brussels airport. Reuters photo
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Fall of Raqqa, Mosul Kindles Hopes of Finding Some Paris, Brussels Attacks Ringleaders

Damage is seen inside the departure terminal following the March 22, 2016 bombing at the Brussels airport. Reuters photo
Damage is seen inside the departure terminal following the March 22, 2016 bombing at the Brussels airport. Reuters photo

For French and Belgian investigators, the fall of ISIS group's strongholds in Syria and Iraq kindles hopes of ensnaring some of the ringleaders of the 2015-16 terror attacks in Paris and Brussels, Agence France Presse reported.

Among the most wanted ISIS figures sought for their suspected involvement in the slaughter, three are at the top of the list -- though their whereabouts are unknown and they may even have been killed in the offensives to free the ISIS strongholds of Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul in Iraq.

Belgian and Moroccan national Oussama Atar, 32, is a veteran militant who spent seven years in various US prisons in Iraq where he is thought to have been radicalized, AFP said.

Investigators suspect him of masterminding the attacks that claimed 130 lives in Paris in November 2015 and left 32 dead in Brussels in March last year.

Belgian police found a computer near a hideout used by the Brussels attackers containing evidence that they were in close contact with Atar, who was based in Raqqa at the time.

An Algerian arrested in late 2015 in Austria as he returned from Syria identified Atar from a photograph as the man who ordered the attacks.

The United States placed Atar, whose nom de guerre was Abu Ahmed, on a list of "specially designated global terrorists" in June this year, describing him as a "leading coordinator" of the attacks in Europe, AFP said.

According to the European arrest warrant for Atar, he is the uncle of Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, brothers who blew themselves up in the Brussels attacks of March 22, 2016, one at the airport and the other in the metro.

Ahmad Alkhald, thought to be an alias, is a 25-year-old Syrian from Aleppo who is suspected of making the bombs and suicide belts used in the Paris and Brussels attacks, AFP said.

His other aliases include Yassine Noure and Mohammed Alqhadi.

His DNA was found on a suicide vest worn by one of the assailants who blew themselves up outside Paris' Stade de France stadium on November 13, 2015, when a string of restaurants and bars in the French capital also came under attack. 

Investigators have established that Alkhald arrived in Europe via the Greek island of Leros posing as a migrant in September 2015, then returned to Syria two weeks before the Paris attacks. 

According to the news agency, he is also on the US list of "global terrorists", described as the "explosives chief" of the Paris and Brussels attacks.

Abdelilah Himich, 27, is a Franco-Moroccan who served in France's Foreign Legion in Afghanistan before deserting from the prestigious force in 2010.

Nicknamed "Abdel the Legionnaire" as well as Abu Sulayman al-Faransi ("the Frenchman"), he is also on the US terror watchlist, described as a "senior foreign terrorist fighter and external operations figure,” AFP said.

Washington says he created "a European foreign terrorist fighter cell" with up to 300 members at its height that carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria as well as planning the Paris and Brussels attacks.

Born in Morocco, he grew up in the small town of Lunel near Montpellier in southern France, which became a breeding ground for militants, AFP added.



Israel’s Netanyahu Claims No One in Gaza Is Starving. Data and Witnesses Disagree 

Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israel’s Netanyahu Claims No One in Gaza Is Starving. Data and Witnesses Disagree 

Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says no one in Gaza is starving: “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza – otherwise, there would be no Gazans.”

US President Donald Trump on Monday said he disagrees with Netanyahu’s claim of no starvation in Gaza, noting the images emerging of emaciated people: “Those children look very hungry.”

After international pressure, Israel over the weekend announced humanitarian pauses, airdrops and other measures meant to allow more aid to Palestinians in Gaza. But people there say little or nothing has changed on the ground. The UN has described it as a one-week scale-up of aid, and Israel has not said how long these latest measures would last.

"This aid, delivered in this way, is an insult to the Palestinian people,” said Hassan Al-Zalaan, who was at the site of an airdrop as some fought over the supplies and crushed cans of chickpeas littered the ground.

Israel asserts that Hamas is the reason aid isn’t reaching Palestinians in Gaza and accuses its fighters of siphoning off aid to support its rule in the territory. The UN denies that looting of aid is systematic and that it lessens or ends entirely when enough aid is allowed to enter Gaza.

Here's what we know:

Deaths are increasing The World Health Organization said Sunday there have been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza this month, including 24 children under the age of 5 — up from 11 deaths total the previous six months of the year.

Gaza's Health Ministry puts the number even higher, reporting 82 deaths this month of malnutrition-related causes: 24 children and 58 adults. It said Monday that 14 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, is headed by medical professionals and is seen by the UN as the most reliable source of data on casualties. UN agencies also often confirm numbers through other partners on the ground.

The Patient’s Friends Hospital, the main emergency center for malnourished kids in northern Gaza, says this month it saw for the first time malnutrition deaths in children who had no preexisting conditions. Some adults who died suffered from such illnesses as diabetes or had heart or kidney ailments made worse by starvation, according to Gaza medical officials.

The WHO also says acute malnutrition in northern Gaza tripled this month, reaching nearly one in five children under 5 years old, and has doubled in central and southern Gaza. The UN says Gaza's only four specialized treatment centers for malnutrition are “overwhelmed.”

The leading international authority on food crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, has warned of famine for months in Gaza but has not formally declared one, citing the lack of data as Israel restricts access to the territory.

Aid trucks are swarmed by hungry people The measures announced by Israel late Saturday include 10-hour daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in three heavily populated areas, so that UN trucks can more easily distribute food.

Still, UN World Food Program spokesperson Martin Penner said the agency's 55 trucks of aid that entered Gaza on Monday via the crossings of Zikim and Kerem Shalom were looted by starving people before they reached WFP warehouses.

Experts say that airdrops, another measure Israel announced, are insufficient for the immense need in Gaza and dangerous to people on the ground. Israel’s military says 48 food packages were dropped Sunday and Monday.

Palestinians say they want a full return to the UN-led aid distribution system that was in place throughout the war, rather than the Israeli-backed mechanism that began in May. Witnesses and health workers say Israeli forces have killed hundreds by opening fire on Palestinians trying to reach those food distribution hubs or while crowding around entering aid trucks. Israel’s military says it has fired warning shots to disperse threats.

The UN and partners say that the best way to bring food into Gaza is by truck, and they have called repeatedly for Israel to loosen restrictions on their entry. A truck carries roughly 19 tons of supplies.

Israel’s military says that as of July 21, 95,435 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the war began. That’s an average of 146 trucks per day, and far below the 500 to 600 trucks per day that the UN says are needed.

The rate has sometimes been as low as half of that for several months at a time. Nothing went in for 2 1/2 months starting in March because Israel imposed a complete blockade on food, fuel and other supplies entering Gaza.

Delivering aid is difficult and slow The UN says that delivering the aid that is allowed into Gaza has become increasingly difficult.

When aid enters, it is left just inside the border in Gaza, and the UN must get Israeli military permission to send trucks to pick it up. But the UN says the military has denied or impeded just over half the movement requests for its trucks in the past three months.

If the UN succeeds in picking up the aid, hungry crowds and armed gangs swarm the convoys and strip them of supplies. The Hamas-run civilian police once provided security along some routes, but that stopped after Israel targeted them with airstrikes.