The Associated Press reports: Senior Iraqi intelligence officials warned members of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group of imminent assaults by the militant organization just one day before last week’s deadly attacks in Paris killed 129 people, The Associated Press has learned.

Iraqi intelligence sent a dispatch saying the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had ordered an attack on coalition countries fighting against them in Iraq and Syria, as well as on Iran and Russia, through bombings or other attacks in the days ahead.

The dispatch said the Iraqis had no specific details on when or where the attack would take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets this kind of communication “all the time” and “every day.”

Without commenting specifically on the Iraqi warning, a senior U.S. intelligence official said he was not aware of any threat information sent to Western governments that was specific enough to have thwarted the Paris attacks. Officials from the U.S., French and other Western governments have expressed worries for months about Islamic State-inspired attacks by militants who fought in Syria, the official noted. In recent weeks, the sense of danger had spiked.

Six senior Iraqi officials confirmed the information in the dispatch, a copy of which was obtained by the AP, and four of these intelligence officials said they also warned France specifically of a potential attack. Two officials told the AP that France was warned beforehand of details that French authorities have yet to make public.

“We have recovered information from our direct sources in the Islamic State terrorist organization about the orders issued by terrorist ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’ directing all members of the organization to implement an international attack that includes all coalition countries, in addition to Iran and the Russian Federation, through bombings or assassinations or hostage taking in the coming days. We do not have information on the date and place for implementing these terrorist operations at this time,” the Iraqi dispatch read in part.

Among the other warnings cited by Iraqi officials: that the Paris attacks appear to have been planned in Raqqa, Syria — the Islamic State’s de-facto capital — where the attackers were trained specifically for this operation and with the intention of sending them to France.

The officials also said a sleeper cell in France then met with the attackers after their training and helped them to execute the plan.

There were 24 people involved in the operation, they said: 19 attackers and five others in charge of logistics and planning. [Continue reading…]

AFP reports: The suicide vests used Friday by attackers in Paris — a first in France — were made by a highly-skilled professional who could still be at large in Europe, intelligence and security experts say.

All seven of the assailants who died in attacks wore identical explosive vests and did not hesitate to blow themselves up — a worrying change of tactic for jihadists targeting France.

Unlike the attacks in London in 2005 where the bombers’ explosives were stored in backpacks, Friday’s assailants used the sort of suicide vests normally associated with bombings in the Middle East.

“Suicide vests require a munitions specialist. To make a reliable and effective explosive is not something anyone can do,” a former French intelligence chief told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. [Continue reading…]