Large crowds are gathering in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels in Belgium for a peace rally in solidarity with the victims of the Paris attacks.
Molenbeek, which has a population of around 100,000 and a high rate of unemployment, has been dubbed a "haven for terror" and a jihadi recruiting ground after Belgian police carried out a series of raids searching for suspects in last week's terror attacks in Paris. The neighborhood was also searched during counterterror operations following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January.
People at the vigil lit candles and held a moment of silence for the victims of the Paris attacks.
The Belgian Federal Prosecutor's office has told The Guardian that two of the Paris attackers, Brahim and Salah Abdesalam, had been interrogated earlier this year but were not detained because they were not seen as a threat.
Brahim Abdesalam blew himself up outside a Paris bar on November 13. He was questioned in February after being stopped in Turkey on suspicion of trying to travel to Syria to fight.
Brahim denied that he wanted to go to Syria and "there were no signs he was participating in terrorist activities," a spokesman for the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's office said.
"He was just a radicalized youngster."
Salah Abdesalam, who is being hunted by police, was also not deemed to be a threat.
The hashtag #JeSuisChien ("I Am Dog") is trending after French police announced earlier today that a police dog, Diesel, had been killed in the raid on an apartment in Saint-Denis in Paris, where several suspects in last week's deadly attacks were holed up.
The hashtag is being used to tweet tributes to the police dog. Diesel was killed when one of the suspects, a woman, detonated her suicide vest.
One French Twitter user tweeted to say that her cat supported the #JeSuisChien hashtag.
Some of the tweets have taken on a humorous or satirical air. Twitter user @Pochineko used the hashtag to tweet a picture of a dog clad in black and the caption "Expect us," a parody of the threat issued by the hacker collective Anonymous who have launched an online war against IS. Anonymous claims to have taken down more than 5,500 IS social media accounts.
The #JeSuisChien hashtag is reminiscent of the #JeSuisCharlie ("I am Charlie") hashtag, logo and slogan that trended following the January 7 terror attacks against the Paris office of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
IS has shared the latest issue of its glossy English-language propaganda magazine, Dabiq, in which it published a photo of what it claims is the improvised bomb that brought down a Russian passenger plane over Egypt's Sinai peninsula last month.
The photo, which is now being widely shared on Twitter, shows a Schweppes Gold drink can and what seem to be a detonator and a switch.
The magazine also carries a photograph of what IS claims are the passports of Russians killed in the plane disaster. The passports were obtained by IS militants, the magazine claimed.
IS said in Dabiq that it had originally planned to "bring down a plane belonging to a nation in the American-led Western coalition against the Islamic State" after "discovering a way to compromise security at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport." However, the extremist group claimed it decided to attack a Russian plane instead after Russia began air strikes in Syria on September 30.
The timing of IS's release of its latest issue of Dabiq as well as its title -- "Just Terror" -- comes a day after Russian security chief Alexander Bortnikov said that a bomb had been planted on the plane equivalent to 1 kilogram of TNT. IS's affiliate in Sinai claimed responsibility for downing the plane, which shattered mid-air killing all 224 people on board.
IS's release of its terror-themed magazine comes after the group claimed responsibility for last week's terror attacks in Paris in which 129 people were killed.
Amid a flood of criticism on social media about a Daily Mail cartoon about refugees entering Europe, New York Times Beirut bureau chief Anne Barnard points out that none of the Paris attackers identified so far are Syrian.
A Syrian passport found close to the body of one of the Stade de France suicide bombers may have belonged to a Syrian soldier killed several months ago, a source close to the investigation told AFP.
The passport is in the name of Ahmad al-Mohammad, a 25-year-old from Idlib city in Syria, who French investigators believe was a soldier loyal to Bashar al-Assad's government.
A man was arrested in Serbia on November 17 carrying a passport bearing the same details as that found near the body of the Paris attacker and raised concerns that the passport discovered in Paris was fake and purchased from the same forger in Turkey.
Britain says it will deploy a Royal Navy warship, the HMS Defender, to support French efforts to bomb IS in Syria.
The warship, a Type 45 destroyer, will support French aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle, which left Toulon for the Gulf today to ease the burden on the 12 French war planes already operating against IS in Syria and Iraq by adding another 20 planes.
British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said in a statement that "France is firmly resolved in its determination to tackle [the IS group] and we need to help too."
"This barbaric terrorist organization must be destroyed and it’s right that we offer all the support we can to confront them...We will consider any further requests for support from France under Article 42.7 of the EU Treaty following Friday’s Paris terror attacks," Fallon added.
As French President Francois Hollande said France was committed to "destroying" the IS group following the deadly attacks in Paris last week, air strikes by France and other nations killed at least 33 IS militants in the extremist group's stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors the conflict.
The strikes took place over the last three days, SOHR say.
SOHR activists say that families of IS militants have started to evacuate Raqqa for the Iraqi city of Mosul, which is also under IS control.
France's RTL radio station is reporting that the female suicide bomber who blew herself up during this morning's raid on an apartment in Saint-Denis in Paris made a call before detonating her suicide vest. RTL says the information came from a police source.
French President Francois Hollande in a speech to a gathering of mayors in Paris said the raid on Saint-Denis was to "neutralize terrorists" linked to the November 13 attacks in the French capital that killed 129 people.
"We are at war...a war against a terrorism that has decided to launch a war against us," Hollande said, calling for a "large coalition" to fight the IS group, which claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in Paris.
Salah Abdesalam, a 26-year-old Belgian suspected of taking part in the Paris attacks, was briefly arrested in the Netherlands in February for possession of cannabis, France's RTL is reporting.
The Dutch police said that the arrest had been a "routine" traffic stop and a "limited" quantity of cannabis had been found during a search of the car. Abdesalam was allowed to continue his journey after a 70 Euro fine, the Dutch police said.
AFP reported earlier that Abdesalam was the target of the Saint-Denis police raid along with alleged Paris attacks mastermind Abdulhamid Abaaoud.