Did the Paris attacks chief suspect abandon vital part of his plan?

A SUSPECTED explosive belt has been found close to where a phone used by wanted s uspect Salah Abdeslam was detected on the night of the attacks, French security sources said last night. Abdeslam, whose brother blew himself up in the Paris attacks, has been on the run since the assault that killed 130 people in the French capital on November 13 and is the focus of a massive manhunt.

French investigators initially believed Abdeslam had been in a black Seat Leon car that was used in the shootings at restaurants and cafes in the 10th and 11th districts of the capital.

A source close to the investigation said, however, that Abdeslam’s mobile phone was detected after the attacks in the northern 18th district of Paris, near an aban- doned Renault Clio car that Abdeslam had rented.

The source said there was now a ‘strong suspicion’ he had been driving the Clio rather than being in the Seat.

When ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, it said it had targeted the Stade de France soccer stadium, the Bataclan concert hall, the 10th and 11th districts, as well as the 18th district.

Since there were no explosions or shootings in the 18th, investigators are now wondering whether there was a failed, or aborted, attack, the source said.

Abdeslam’s phone was detected later on November 13 by a mobile phone mast in the south of Paris, near Montrouge where the suspected explosive belt was left.

But the source said it was too soon to say whether the object had been in contact with Abdeslam. ‘The thesis that he abandoned [the attack] is just coming from people who brought him back [to Belgium]. But we don’t know why. Maybe he had a technical problem with his explosive belt, for example,’ said a police source.

Meanwhile, Brussels last night extended its maximum security alert for a week as the manhunt goes on for ISIS suspects in the Paris attacks – although the city’s metro and schools could reopen from tomorrow.

The threat of Paris-style attacks on c r owds and gatherings remained imminent, Prime Minister Charles Michel told a news conference after a near four-hour meeting with security advisers. But he also wanted the city, he said, to get back to normal. ‘The threat is the same as yesterday,’ said Mr Michel, who on Saturday raised the alert level to the highest of four grades.

With troops patrolling the streets of Brussels, prosecutors said they had charged a fourth person with terrorist offences linked to the Paris attacks.

ISIS issued a video of a masked man identified as Belgian fighter urging his “brothers” to follow the example of the Paris attacks.

Justice Minister Jan Jambon, whose security services have come under sharp criticism from France and elsewhere in Europe for allowing violent radicals to gain a particularly strong foothold in Belgium, said he saw no rapid end to the manhunt.

‘My hope is that we will arrest them in the next few hours,’ he told reporters last night. ‘But being realistic, the investigation will take a bit more time.’

Troops patrolling streets of Brussels