The hunt for the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks took a dramatic twist when he was traced to a bolthole in the French capital – triggering a deadly police raid.
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In an earlier statement, Molins’ office said: “One woman, who was holed up in the apartment [and] who activated her explosive vest at the beginning of the raid, is dead”. He said the raid was launched after information from tapped telephone conversations, surveillance and witness accounts indicated that Abaaoud might be in a safe house in the north Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
But he added: “Nobody has been able to enter the building so forensic police have not started their work”. “It is near the area of the national stadium Stade de France, where suicide bombers claimed several lives during Friday’s attacks”, Rowland said.
Investigators have identified Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the chief architect of Friday’s attacks in Paris, which killed 129 people and wounded 350 others.
A woman blew herself up and a suspected jihadist was killed Wednesday in a massive police assault in Paris targeting the possible mastermind of France’s worst-ever terror attacks.
An innocent person on the street may have been killed in the crossfire and at least five police have been injured in the ferocious gunfight.
Mr Molins said: “At least one terrorist killed herself with an explosive”.
Head of the French Red Cross in St. Denis, Agostinnuci Jean Marc says they treated their first victims at around 8am, despite the raids starting much earlier.
A police source said three suspects had been arrested so far.
According to German media, the French alerted German Federal Police to an Iraqi sleeper, who French intelligence say had concrete plans to attack.
Shooting breaks out. – 04:31 am (0331 GMT): firemen say they have joined the operation against “an armed group holed up in an apartment”. The official, not authorized to be publicly named according to police rules, said the standoff is still going on after a few five hours. Roads were blocked off around Rue de la Republique in Saint Denis. France has ramped up its assault on militants in Syria. Police have cordoned off the area nearby, including a pedestrian zone lined with shops and 19th-century apartment buildings. Another identified suspect, Salah Abdeslam, was not among the people arrested in the raid, either.
News of a second unidentified terrorist thought to be directly involved in the Paris atrocity emerged after CCTV indicated there were three extremists involved in the attack on bars in the city.
Abdeslam’s older brother has urged the suspect, who was last seen driving toward the Belgian border hours after the attacks, to turn himself over to authorities.
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Russian Federation has also intensified its attacks on Islamic State targets in Syria after confirming that a bomb had downed a passenger airliner over Sinai last month, killing 224.
