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As Belgium issued an arrest warrant for a new suspect in the Paris attacks, prosecutors in Paris revealed that the alleged ringleader had visited the Bataclan concert hall crime scene and planned to blow himself up with an accomplice in the capital’s largest district.

The harrowing details of the further carnage plotted by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, identified as the mastermind of the Nov. 13 massacre, emerged during a Tuesday news conference with Paris prosecutor Francois Molins. In Brussels, the hunt was on for 30-year-old Mohamed Abrini, who was seen driving a car with fugitive Salah Abdeslam two days before the shootings and bombings that killed 130 people.

The second onslaught on Paris was planned for Nov. 18 or Nov. 19 at La Defense, a skyscraper-dotted business district. Abaaoud, who was killed during a police raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis on Nov. 18, was also tied to a failed assault on a Paris-bound high-speed train in August and a plot to attack a church in the city in April. Two explosive vests were found at the Saint-Denis hideout while Abdeslam made calls to Belgium after the attack.

A soldier stands guard at Brussels Midi railway station, on Nov. 24. Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg

In a disturbing twist, Molins said that security video footage in the Paris metro indicated that Abaaoud returned to the Bataclan theater, where victims trapped inside died in a hail of bullets, as police operations were already underway.

With Brussels under lockdown for a fourth day, authorities are trying to track down Abrini, who was spotted with Abdeslam on Nov. 11 at a gas station in Ressons, France. Another unidentified person was also charged with participating in terrorist activities.

Abrini is “dangerous and probably armed,” police said.

With Abdeslam still on the run, a suicide vest similar to those found in the attacks was discovered in the same Paris suburb where a mobile phone belonging to Abdeslam was located. A link between the two has not been established, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Brussels has been paralyzed by a threat of terror unprecedented for a western capital, with gun-toting soldiers and armed police patrolling the streets, schools shut and people heeding the government’s advice to avoid large public gatherings.

The decision to keep Brussels on a heightened state of alert extends the disruption to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union, both of which have their headquarters in the city. NATO told non-essential staff to stay at home Monday, while the EU opened with reinforced security.

— With assistance by Nicholas Brautlecht, and Ian Wishart