The ringleader behind the attacks which left 130 people dead in Paris on November 13 is believed to be Abdelhamid Abaaoud. The attacker’s connection to the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels is already well-documented.
But according to two Western officials speaking on condition of anonymity to the Wall Street Journal, Abaaoud may also have close connections to individuals in the UK, based largely in the Birmingham area.
Officials also believe one of the Paris attackers traveled to the UK’s second-largest city prior to the shootings, and that calls were made to contacts in the UK.
"These calls to Birmingham were made shortly before the Paris attacks," a source told the Birmingham Mail.
"British police are urgently investigating whether anyone in the UK was involved in the Paris attacks. They also want to determine whether there is a linked terror cell based here."
Speaking before lawmakers last week, the UK’s senior counterterrorism officer Mark Rowley addressed the concerns.
"You would be expecting us and the security services to be working flat out to look for any possible links and connections of that network to anything in the UK," he said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "I can give you 100% assurance we are doing that but it would be wrong to discuss the detail of what we are or are not finding."
Birmingham has a history of playing host to jihadists. Several individuals have been connected with terror cells in Morocco and Algeria. Junaid Hussian, a native to the city, was killed by a US drone strike in Syria earlier this year.
While dozens of arrests have been made across France and Belgium, no one has been apprehended in the UK in relation to in the attacks of November 13. A number of individuals have, however, been arrested in Birmingham over suspected links to Daesh, also known as ISIL/The Islamic State.
With nearly 800 people having traveled from the United Kingdom to Syria, London raised the nation’s terror alert to "severe" last year. Parliament’s recent approval of British airstrikes against Daesh could exacerbate concerns of a retaliatory attack.
"No one is going to get safer," former London Mayor Ken Livingstone told the Today program on Tuesday, ahead of Parliament’s vote. "We are going to get more at risk."
"Many countries in Europe, including the UK, are justifiably concerned about the possibility of follow-on terror attacks after the tragedy in Paris and remain on high-alert," a US official told the Wall Street Journal.
"This is heightened by the fact that law enforcement and security agencies are still seeking to identify and roll-up terrorist networks that may be connected [to Daesh]."
