Two terrorists linked to Friday’s terror attacks in Paris are dead and seven others arrested following a major police operation on an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
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The presumed mastermind of last week’s devastating attacks in Paris once bragged about being so slippery he could move undetected between Syria and Belgium, his home country.
CNN affiliate BFMTV reported that police officers have been wounded by gunfire during a raid seeking one of the suspects in the wave of violence across Paris, which killed at least 129 people and wounded hundreds more. Authorities said a woman blew herself up and a man was killed. Police in full assault gear cordoned off the area nearby the apartment and cut off public transport, the Associated Press reports.
Police vans and fire trucks rushed to the scene in Saint-Denis, north of Paris.
At least seven explosions were heard at the scene of the stand-off in rue du Cornillon, in the heart of the historic multi-cultural area north of the city centre.
Earlier Anonymous hackers claimed to have taken down more than 6000 Twitter accounts of Isil supporters after declaring war on the jihadist group.
They said one man was also killed and seven people arrested in the standoff, which began before dawn Wednesday local time and continued more than six hours later, when a loud bang rang out around the streets near the apartment building.
Authorities have been looking for the so-called “ninth suspect”, who may appear in a video recorded by a witness to the Paris attacks. It said they haven’t been identified yet.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Salah Abdeslam and a suspect thought to be a ninth attacker are said to be directly involved in Friday’s mass killings.
The latest on the deadly attacks in Paris.
The brief clip shows two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons calmly firing on the bar then returning toward a waiting vehicle, whose driver was maneuvering behind them. One of his brothers, Brahim, blew himself up in Paris.
In a speech to French mayors, President François Hollande said the operation was meant to “neutralize terrorists” with connection to the attacks of last week. The French defense ministry said 10 jets had hit two Islamic State command centers in the militants’ base of Raqqa, Syria. He said terrorists were targeting France because of its values and place in the world. On Tuesday evening, a football friendly between Germany and the Netherlands was cancelled shortly before kick-off and the stadium in Hanover evacuated after “concrete” information about a bomb threat, according to the city’s police chief.
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Meanwhile, two Air France planes heading to Paris from the USA were diverted because of security threats.
