CNN
Tracking ISIS operative at large reveals missed opportunities
CNN investigation into Oussama Atar — the ISIS operative suspected of coordinating the Paris and Brussels attacks — and how authorities missed opportunities to stop him.
McLaughlin’s CNN investigation into Oussama Atar — the Belgian-Moroccan ISIS operative identified as a suspected coordinator of the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings — reconstructing his path from an Iraqi prison to the Syria-based network and the missed chances to stop him.
Why it mattered
The investigation reconstructed how a known operative, imprisoned in Iraq years earlier, slipped through Belgian surveillance to help coordinate attacks that killed 162 people in Paris and Brussels.
- Correspondent
- Erin McLaughlin
- CNN
- Margot Haddad
- CNN
- Lauren Said-Moorhouse
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Jihadist recruiter walking free in Belgium
CNN exclusive inside Brussels' jihadist recruitment network — McLaughlin interviews the mother of a teenager who died in Syria after being recruited in Belgium, and confronts a convicted ISIS recruiter freed by a Belgian court.
Watch report at CNN →