Inside Paris suicide bombers' rented hotel 'drug dens' found strewn with syringes, plastic tubes and pizza boxes

The syringe and plastic tubes in the suicide bombers' grubby room at the motel
Peter Allen17 November 2015

A terrorist wanted over the Paris attacks rented rooms in his own name for the suicide bombers which have been found littered with drug taking equipment.

Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old described as “Public Enemy Number One” in France, reserved two studio rooms in the suburb of Alfortville.

Using the website Booking.Com, he requested two large rooms that could accommodate a number of people for a week, paying with his own bank card. The booking started last Wednesday.

‘It allowed them to use rooms 311 and 312 of the hotel in Alfortville,’ said a source close to the criminal enquiry.

He added: ‘The hotel does not have video-surveillance camera. The judicial police have found traces of DNA and confiscated the hotel’s computer desk from reception.’

A pizza box inside the hotel room

The Alfortville hotel was used by at least two of the attackers. Pizza leftovers and chocolate cakes bought from the hotel’s snack machine were found in one of their rooms.

Syringes, a set of short needles and plastic tubes were also found scattered around a coffee table.

Police are trying to work out whether this was drugs taking paraphernalia or equipment linked to the killers’ explosive-packed belts.

It is common practice for Jihadis involved in suicidal attacks to take drugs such as heroin and cocaine so as to steel themselves.

Police also found a third car linked to the Paris terror attacks in which 132 died.

Salah Abdeslam rented the rooms using Booking.Com
Police Nationale

The black Renault Clio was found in the Place Albert Kahn in the 18th arrondissement of the city.

Special forces took part in 128 counter-terrorism raids across France today as the hunt for those behind the Paris attacks continued.

Addresses were raided in towns and cities ranging from Strasbourg in the east to Toulouse in the south-west, as arrests were made and weapons confiscated.

World in union: vigils have taken place across the globe in support of Paris
AFP

In Reims, east of Paris, armed officers were seen breaking down doors and dragging suspects away in the Croix Rouge district.

It is known as a hotbed of Islamic radicalism, and was the home of one of the Charlie Hebdo killers who struck in January.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said there were currently 115,000 police, gendarmes, and soldiers dedicated to the current crisis, which started last Friday when 132 people were murdered at sites across Paris, including a concert venue and the Stade de France.

Today’s raids followed 168 on Sunday night, when police made 23 arrests and seized 31 weapons including a rocket launcher.

They were carried out as part of France's ongoing State of Emergency, which has given extra powers to the police.

The raids were not solely linked to Islamic extremism, but also arms trafficking and the drugs trade.

'Most wanted': Abdelhamid Abaaoud is believed to have orchestrated the attacks

It came as the French Airforce launched a second night of heavy bombing in Syria of the positions of Islamic State, who are known to have coordinated the Paris attacks.

Ten fighter jets took part in raids , dropping 16 bombs, destroying a command centre and training centre in Raqqa, the IS ‘capital’ in Syria.

Abdelsam and two other men were stopped by the police on the A2 motorway between Paris and Brussels hours after the attacks, but then released.

This was after he abandoned a car containing three Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles on the outskirts of the French capital.

Detectives soon realised their blunder when they discovered that Abdeslam had rented a VW Polo abandoned near the scene of the massacre inside the Bataclan theatre.

However, by the time they alerted Belgian authorities, the men had abandoned the car in Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels also notorious for its Islamic extremists, and disappeared.

Abdeslam was one of three brothers thought to have been involved in carnage, which also left more than 350 people injured, 90 of whom are still critical.

Seven of the eight-man cell suspected of carrying out the attacks were suicide bombers who blew themselves up at the Bataclan, a string of cafes and restaurants, and the Stade de France, where France was playing a football international against Germany.

President Francois Hollande, who was at the game, described the attacks as ‘An act of War’ and said France's reaction would be pitiless.

Abdeslam Salah – a French national born in Belgium – was described as ‘extremely dangerous’ by police, who added that he ‘should not be approached’.

He is thought to have helped with logistics, before slipping away during the shootings and bombings.

As evidence of intelligence blunders continued, it also emerged that, just last Thursday, security agents in Iraq warned of imminent assaults by IS on enemy countries ‘through bombings or assassinations or hostage taking in the coming days’.

One of Salah’s brothers, Ibrahim Abdeslam, blew himself up outside the Comptoir Voltaire restaurant, while the other, Mohammed, did the same at another target.

Britons will join the rest of Europe in a two-minute silence to show solidarity with France at 11am today.

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