French officials believe as many as 20 people across Europe may have been involved in plotting and executing the deadly Paris attacks that left at least 132 people dead and hundreds injured.
Of the eight known assailants, six were killed when they detonated suicide belts, and one was shot and killed by police. Two European intelligence officials told The Washington Post that at least two of those attackers spent time in Syria, including 20-year-old French national Bilal Hadfi, who went to Belgium after leaving the Middle East, then fell off the radar. A senior intelligence official requesting anonymity admitted to the Post that mistakes were made when it came to tracking suspected homegrown terrorists: "That so many people, some of whom had been known to police, had been able to plot such a large attack, using suicide explosive belts, weapons, without the intelligence services knowing — that's a major failure of the intelligence services."
An eighth suspect, identified by French police as Salah Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national, is on the run, and the subject of an international manhunt. Police say the 26-year-old is a "dangerous individual" who allegedly rented one of the cars used in the attacks. His 31-year-old brother blew himself up inside a cafe, and another unidentified brother was apprehended in Belgium, authorities said. A source close to the investigation told CNN Abdeslam was driving in the direction of the Belgian border when he was stopped by police and questioned a few hours after the attacks, but was released.
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