Abdelhamid Abaaoud

Abdelhamid Abaaoud
Abaaoud holding the Quran and a black flag of the Islamic State
Born	8 April 1987 Anderlecht, Belgium
Died	18 November 2015(2015-11-18) (aged 28) Saint-Denis, France
Cause of death	Ballistic trauma
Nationality	Belgian-Moroccan
Other names	Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud
Known for	Brussels ISIL terror cell November 2015 Paris attacks
Military career
Allegiance	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Battles/wars	Syrian Civil War (2014–15)

Abdelhamid Abaaoud (8 April 1987 – 18 November 2015) was a Belgian-MoroccanIslamic terrorist, who had spent time in Syria, known as a place where radical groups operate and train. He was suspected of having organized multiple terror attacks in Belgium and France, and is known to have masterminded in the November 2015 Paris attacks. Prior to the Paris attacks, there was an international arrest warrant issued for Abaaoud for his activities in recruiting individuals to Islamic terrorism in Syria.

Abaaoud was also known as Abu Omar Soussi (Arabic: أبو عمر السوسي‎‎, meaning "from Sous", his Moroccan family's place of origin) and as Abu Omar al-Baljīkī (Arabic: أبو عمر البلجيكي‎‎, meaning Abou Omar the Belgian), both of which were noms de guerre.

Abdelhamid, one of six children, was born on 8 April 1987 in Anderlecht, a suburb of Brussels, Belgium. He was the son of Omar Abaaoud, who emigrated to Belgium from Morocco in 1975. Omar Abaaoud's first employment after emigration was in mining, before he was employed as a shopkeeper. The Abaaoud family are ethnic Berbers, from the Moroccan city of Agadir.

Abaaoud grew up in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, an area in Brussels where "the radical Salafist ideology has flourished among some young Muslims." He attended the select Collège Saint-Pierre () in Uccle from 1999 to 2000.