“Abdelhamid Abaaoud played a crucial role in the terrorist attacks that rocked Paris on November 13”, the French interior minister said at a press conference aired by BFMTV television on Thursday.
Advertisement
“No information coming from European countries, where he could have transited before arriving in France, was given to us”, Cazeneuve said of the man suspected of being the mastermind of the attacks. “The state of the body has not permitted, at this stage, to identify it”, he added. The other killed in the strike was a woman who blew herself up.
The threat was more acute in Europe than the United States, the assessment said, but cautioned that “we can not discount the possibility for potential complex attacks here in the Homeland”.
The French interior minister said the six foiled attacks were all planned from overseas with the intention they would be carried out by jihadists living in Europe.
The bodies recovered in the raid were badly mangled, with part of the woman’s spine landing on a police auto, complicating formal identification.
Eight people were arrested following the raid which saw p olice fire about 5,000 rounds of ammunition as the terrorist cell barricaded themselves in the hideout.
Belgian jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud was subject to a Belgian arrest warrant yet was able to evade European security and travel from Syria to France where he led the recent terror attacks last Friday.
Paris prosecutor François Molins, however, did not confirm whether Abaaoud was one of at least two terrorists who died in the Saint-Denis apartment.
Advertisement
The gun appears to jam, and the man walks away, giving them a chance to escape.
