‘Let bomb-maker planned to join ISIS for Paris carnage’

London, Sep 6 (PTI) A Pakistani LeT bombmaker with a bentfor an un-Islamic hobby of accessing porn was part of the teamof militants who set out to execute the deadly Paris attacksbut could not reach in time to make it even more catastrophic,according to a media report. The November 14 series of coordinated attacks by suicidebombers and gunmen, the deadliest inflicted on France sinceWorld War II, were a "slimmed-down version of an even moreambitious plan" to hit other European countries and followingthem up with strikes in several locations, a senior Europeancounter-terrorism official told CNN. Muhammad Usman, a suspected bombmaker for the Pakistaniterror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, had set out from the capital ofthe self-declared ISIS caliphate in Raqqa, Syria, six weeksbefore the Paris attacks along with Algerian-born AdelHaddadi, the report said, citing investigation documents. The duo were part of a team of four militants, of whomthe other two operatives later blew themselves up outside thenational stadium in Paris, killing nearly 130 people. The team posed as Syrian refugees, blending in withthousands fleeing the war-torn country and made thetreacherous crossing from Izmir, Turkey, into Greece in a boatfilled with dozens of refugees but were intercepted by theGreek Navy. The two who would go on to strike the Paris stadiumpassed through Greece – though Greek officials declined toexplain how – and started moving across Europe toward theirtarget in France while Haddadi and Usman’s fake Syrianpassports were discovered and they were arrested. They were held for nearly a month, according toinvestigators, who believe that the delay was "significant asthey did not have a chance to become part of the Parisattacks". They were only released in late October following whichthey immediately contacted their ISIS handler, Abu Ahmad, whoarranged for someone to wire them 2,000 euros and the paircontinued along the refugee route. And as they travelled north, Usman was preoccupied with astrikingly un-Islamic hobby – using his phone to peruse almosttwo dozen X-rated sites, including "sexxx lahur" and"Pakistani Lahore college girls … ImakeSex." The documents – which are some 90,000 pages most of themin French and include a trove of interrogations, investigativefindings and data pulled from cell phones, shedding new lighton the highly organised branch of the external operations wingof the sophisticated ISIS network known as the Amn al-Kharji -also show that Usman spoke only Urdu, while Haddadi spokemostly Arabic. PTI SAI AKJSAI