Schiphol again id'd as target during 2015 Paris terrorism attacks

Schiphol Airport is believed to have been targeted in a planned terrorist attack that was to take place simultaneously as the Nov. 13, 2015 attacks in Paris. Investigators made the assertion in a 561-page indictment produced by French authorities examining the coordinated assaults that left 130 people dead, according to Belgian newspaper De Standard.

The alleged mastermind, Oussama Atar, was killed in Syria in 2017. The Belgian man was also tied to the Brussels Attacks on March 22, 2016, and a foiled attack on an Amsterdam-to-Paris Thalys train on Aug. 21, 2015.

Years later, it is still unknown why an apparent planned attack at the Amsterdam airport did not take place. Schiphol as a target in the series of coordinated attacks was first revealed by weekly magazine Paris Match.

Sources in 2016 first revealed that a laptop belonging to one of the bombing suspects had a folder titled "13 November", which identified Schiphol as a target. Two suspects, Soefien A. and Osama K., departed Brussels for Amsterdam on a Eurolines bus on Nov. 13, 2015. Though they purchased one-way tickets, the men returned to Brussels the same day.

Both were arrested in Belgium in 2016. One of the Brussels Airport bombers was also connected to the Netherlands.

French newspaper Le Monde was the first to note that A. and K. had traveled to Amsterdam that day. The report led parliamentarians to grill former Justice Minister Ard van der Steur.