The extremist cell that launched deadly attacks on Paris and Brussels received its orders from "very high" in the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) command, Belgium's federal prosecutor said Wednesday (November 9th).

"We know that the orders came from the Islamic State zone.... We know that it went very high in the command," Frederic Van Leeuw told AFP.

He could not say which top ISIL official or officials gave the orders or whether they sent them from a base in Syria or Iraq in territory controlled by ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The ISIL command moved around to dodge coalition strikes, he said, adding that "al-Baghdadi was for a while in Mosul, sometimes in al-Raqa".

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris last November 13th that killed 130 people, as well as the suicide bombings in Brussels on March 22nd that killed 32 people.

Van Leeuw said the attacks were carried out by the same cell, some of whose members were based in Brussels, and the authorities are still looking for suspects who did not die in the attacks or were arrested afterward.