Police forces prepare in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, Wednesday, November 18, 2015.
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The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was not among a number of people arrested in a huge police raid today, the city’s prosecutor said.
A woman wearing an explosive suicide vest blew herself up yesterday as heavily armed police tried to storm a suburban Paris apartment where the suspected mastermind of last week’s gun and bomb rampage was believed to be holed up, police said.
Islamic State, which controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, saying they were in retaliation for French air raids against their positions over the past year.
French police wouldn’t comment on whether any officers had been shot in the Saint-Denis operation.
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Security sources said the fourth terror cell – in addition to the three teams who carried out Friday’s deadly attacks – had been planning to attack Charles de Gaulle Airport and a shopping mall, according to French state broadcaster France 2.
Until Wednesday morning, officials had said Abaaoud was in Syria.
“I heard gunfire”, she said.
The suspects appeared to be “prepared to act” in another possible attack, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said, noting their weaponry, structured organization and determination.
Abaaoud is believed to have escaped to Syria after a January police raid in Belgium, but he has bragged in Islamic State propaganda of his ability to move back and forth between Europe and Syria undetected.
“A body riddled with impacts was found in the debris of the building”.
Authorities didn’t release their identities; Molins would only say that Abaaoud and Abdeslam were not among them. Overall seven men and a woman were arrested at the apartment or nearby.
If confirmed, however, the death of Abdelhamid Abaaoud would be a major coup for French law enforcement officials, who have conducted a manhunt in the days following Friday’s attacks, which killed 129 people across the city and wounded scores more.
Investigators got another potential break with the discovery of a cellphone in a garbage can outside of the Bataclan concert venue, the scene of dozens of gruesome killings on Friday.
The restaurant is not named in Daily Mail’s accompanying article but examination by The Associated Press suggests it is Casa Nostra, a pizzeria near the Bonne Biere, another restaurant hit by the attackers and where five people were killed.
Authorities are trying to determine whom the message was sent to, he said.
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. The security official said the bulletin was sent to authorities across Europe, not only to Spain.
Mr Hollande once again declared that “France is at war” and defended restrictions on civil liberties put in place under the three-month national state of emergency announced on Tuesday.
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Ritter reported from Paris.
