Paris suicide bomber didn't want to kill anyone, family claims

Suicide bomber Ibrahim Abdeslam, 31, killed no one but himself when he detonated his vest outside of the Comptoir Voltaire café during Friday's horrific attacks in Paris. While his brothers, Salah and Mohamed, have also been linked to the Paris attacks (Salah has yet to be apprehended), it was Ibrahim's actions in particular that shocked his mother, The Telegraph reports. In an interview from her home in Brussels, she told the Belgian news website Het Laatste Nieuws that she believed Ibrahim "did not mean to kill anyone."

"Maybe the explosives went off prematurely by accident. Maybe it was stress. We even saw him two days before the attacks. There were no signs that they had plans to do anything violent. The fact that his bomb belt exploded without killing anyone else says a lot," another family member said. The family agreed they were "surprised" Ibrahim had blown himself up, even despite him having spent "a long time" in Syria.

"We were really surprised that Salah was involved. Ibrahim was different. We did see that he had been radicalized, at least in part. But not so much that we ever thought he would commit an atrocity like this," the family said.

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French newspapers report Ibrahim had worked in a café that closed earlier this month after neighbors complained of smelling cannabis. Ibrahim was later identified as having rented the car used in the drive-by attack that killed patrons at the Casa Nostra restaurant and La Belle Équipe café. It was found abandoned later, with weapons inside.