Terrorist Backed Out in Paris Attack

On November 13, 2015, armed men entered a concert venue, bars, restaurants, and a sport stadium, shooting and killing a total of 130 innocent lives who just wanted to have a fun night out in the city of Paris. Eighty-nine of the victims were killed at the concert hall the Bataclan and all three killers at the site were killed at the venue, either by activating their suicide vests or was shot by the police. 

Fast forward to four months later. On March 18, 2016, Belgium police raided a flat in an impoverished Belgium city of Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels after finding the DNA of Europe most wanted man Salah Abdeslam in another apartment that the police were raiding as well.  After the police entered a flat, a gunfight started between the police and the inhabitants of the apartment and there the police found Salah Abdeslam, though wounded on the leg during the gun battle, and the arrest was made after the long four-month search after the Paris attack. 

After the arrest, Salah Abdeslam were questioned by the French and Belgium authorities and prosecutors.  Paris prosecutor Francois Molins announced at news conference, "Salah Abdeslam today during questioning by [Belgian] investigators affirmed that, and I quote, 'he wanted to blow himself up at the Stade de France and that he had backed down.” The reason he backed out from the original plan leaves authorities and the public to guess what was the true motive of his escape.  Why did he fail to go forward with the agenda? Did he betray the other perpetrators?  Was he too afraid to die? Only time will tell us why he chose to back out and drove back to Belgium. 

But one can guess that maybe there was a sign of repentance and guilt behind his action, making him to fail in carrying out his devilish and meriless murder back in November.  Mr. Abdeslam is 26; he is at the age where most people are still searching for a stable place in life, whether that is a career, relationship, job, etc. Maybe he came to the realization that night that there are more to life than this mass murder that his friends and brother were about to carry out on the night before November 13.  Whatever the reason behind his action, we can rest assure that lives were saved because Mr. Abdeslam decided to change his mind.