Police have identified Moroccan-descended French citizen Foued Mohamed Aggad as the third assailant in last month's deadly terrorist attack at the Bataclan theatre in Paris, daily Le Parisien reported on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old native of Strasbourg was identified after his mother received a text message in English 10 days ago announcing her son's death "as a martyr" on 13 November, and gave French a DNA sample, Aggad's jailed older brother Karim's lawyer was quoted as saying.
"Without the mother, there would have been nothing," the lawyer, Francoise Cotta said.
French prime minister Manuel Valls confirmed on BFMTV that the third Bataclan attacker had been identified as Aggad.
Ninety people were killed in the assault on the Bataclan theatre, which was claimed by the so-called Islamic State jihadist group. The two other Bataclan attackers were earlier identified as Samy Amimour, 28, and Omar Ismail Mostefai, 29.
Aggad's identification after his DNA was matched with that of his family members was further confirmation that the Paris terrorist attacks on 13 November were carried out largely if not entirely by Europeans trained by IS in Syria.
Aggad went to Syria with his brother and a group of friends at the end of 2013, according to a source close to the investigation, cited by Le Parisien. Most of the other members of the group were arrested in spring last year after returning to Syria but Aggad stayed on there, the source said.
Aggad's father, who is separated from his mother, was quoted as telling Le Parisien he last heard from his son four or five months ago via Skype.
"As usual, he didn’t say where he was or what he was doing. He spoke a lot about Jihad. What can I say? It was like talking to someone different, someone who had been brainwashed."
“It would have been better that he died in Syria,” Said Mohamed Aggad said.
The Frenchman believed to have recruited Aggad and the other members of the group who travelled to Syria with him, Mourad Fares, is under arrest.
French interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve described Fares as a "particularly dangerous individual close to jihadist terrorist movements" including IS.
A total of 140 people were killed and 368 injured in the assault on the Bataclan and several bars and restaurants in central Paris by at least seven assailants who were killed in the attacks and a subsequent police raid in Paris. Two suspects are still on the run.
