Threat Intelligence

NSA helped Belgium during investigation, led to arrest of Paris attacker

Belgian security officials reportedly turned to the National Security Agency (NSA) for assistance during an investigation that led to the arrest of one of the accused Paris terrorists. Data provided to the Belgian authorities by the U.S. intelligence agency led to the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, an individual accused of involvement in the November 2015 Paris attacks, according to a BuzzFeed report.

The Belgian investigation began with an assignment to trail two individuals suspected of ties to an individual accused in a May 2014 attack in Brussels that killed four people. The two suspects were identified at the March funeral of Chakib Akrouh, another suspected Paris terrorist who blew himself up during a police raid in November.

The NSA assisted Belgian law enforcement authorities in intercepting information contained on the mobile phones of individuals who attended the funeral of another attacker, according to the report.

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