ISIS claims Paris and Brussels attacks began with Bakraoui brothers
Dabiq, the slick online propaganda magazine published by the Islamic State (ISIS), provides news details in an issue released Wednesday on the group's role in the March 22 attacks in Brussels and links to the Paris attacks.
A total of 32 people were killed in twin attacks at Brussels' Zaventem Airport and Maelbeek metro station when suicide bombers detonated explosives.
The new issue of the propaganda magazine praises brothers Khalid and Ibrahim Bakraoui for carrying out the attacks.
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The article makes the bold claim that they were the driving force behind both the Paris and Brussels attacks and were radicalized while in a European jail.
The online magazine claims Khalid Bakraoui, who detonated a bomb in the Brussels metro station, had "life-changing dream" while in prison.
"All preparations for the raids in Paris and Brussels started with him and his older brother Ibrahim. These two brothers gathered the weapons and the explosives," according to Dabiq.
"After the blessed raid in Paris, he saw another dream," reads the article, which the writer says motivated Bakraoui to carry out another attack -- this time in Brussels.
Dabiq also claims to have a quote from Khalid on the nature of the dream. He claimed to have seen a vision of three Turkish soldiers whom he killed.
"I then saw my soul and those of the three soldiers," Khalid reportedly said. "All of a sudden, the soldiers’ souls burned and vanished and, suddenly, the banner of Islam – represented in the dream by the flag of the Islamic State – came out of the earth and was shining brightly. My soul then became full of light.”
The article frames Khalid as the leader and his brother Ibrahim as a follower and planner.
"After he was released from prison," Dabiq writes of Ibrahim, "he quickly joined his brother Khālid, began buying weapons, searched for lodging, and made plans."
Interestingly, the article makes no mention of either man traveling to Iraq or Syria, the location of ISIS militants' stronghold. It does note that Khalid recruited other young men to travel to Syria for jihad.
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The publication makes mention of Najim Laachraoui, the second bomber who blew himself up at the Brussels airport.
According to the publication, he first travelled to Syria in 2013, a fact confirmed by his family who reported him missing at the time to local police. While there, he trained with extremists and "upon completing his training, he traveled the long road to France to execute his operation," says Dabiq.
The magazine claims he prepared the explosives for the two raids in Paris and Brussels, a point confirmed by investigators.
As the investigation into the attacks continue, new details allege that further attacks were planned, like one at the upcoming 2016 Euro soccer tournament.
But questions still remain on just how far the network goes.
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Megan Specia was Mashable's Assistant Real-Time News Editor and joined the team in September 2014. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from the University of New Hampshire after growing up in the Jersey 'burbs. She made her way to New York via a four year stopover in Dublin. Megan previously worked as a journalist and editor at Storyful in both Dublin and New York. Before all of that, though, her claim to fame was as head cake arranger and purveyor of all things sweet at Queen of Tarts cafe in Dublin, where she developed a serious addiction to macarons.
