The mastermind of the Paris attacks was part of a network linked to at least six Islamist hate preachers from Britain, a media report said here on Sunday.

Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28, is said to be associated with a banned outfit called Sharia4Belgium which has sent more than 50 fighters from his native Belgium to join ISIS.

The network included a man from Luton who later became an ISIS bomb-maker, the Sunday Times reported following the deadly November 13 attacks in the French capital that killed 130 people.

The group was created in 2010 by Fouad Belkacem, a convicted burglar, after he travelled to London to seek inspiration from a radical British cleric.

The cleric, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has described Belkacem as a “dear friend” and told how he was asked to help “start something in Belgium”, the report said.

Once established, Sharia4Belgium quickly began recruiting impressionable young men from cities such as Antwerp and Brussels, the home of Abaaoud and at least three other Paris attackers who were trained by ISIS.