Killed along with Abaaoud was a woman who blew herself up with an explosives vest at the beginning of the raid. Seven assailants died in the attack and a suspected eighth is still on the run.
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The pre-dawn raids in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis turned into hours-long standoff between security forces and up to four people holed up in an apartment, near the Stade de France stadium that was attacked by suicide bombers on Friday.
Hours after the raid, a loud blast, believed to be a controlled explosion, was heard at the flat – suggesting explosives were being held there. About 110 members of the security services were involved.
A Spanish security official said Wednesday that French authorities had sent a bulletin to police across Europe asking them to watch out for a Citroen Xsara vehicle that could be carrying Salah Abdeslam, whose brother, Brahim, was among the attackers who blew themselves up. “Do not leave your homes”.
St Denis, a city of 118,000 people, is known for its melting-pot population and large Muslim community, as well as a Gothic basilica where many French monarchs are buried.
“Everyone must understand it is urgent that Europe wakes up, organises itself and defends itself against the terrorist threat”, Cazeneuve said.
Five officers were wounded, and a police dog was killed in the operation.
No information has been released on the status of Salah Abdeslam, a French citizen who lived in Belgium that was identified as a suspect in the Paris attacks.
“The corpse was mutilated, probably from grenades and he wasn’t recognizable”, Fauverge said. “They did not dare to go to the police”.
But two United States officials said that many, though not all, of those identified were on the U.S. no-fly list. “This is a city that has 130 different nationalities, including people who come from war zones. We are a population that needs serenity”.
“At this time, I’m not in a position to give a precise and definitive number for the people who died, nor their identities, but there are at least two dead people”, Molins said. He has been the subject of an intense global manhunt, along with a second suspect.
The explosion and gunshots from police killed Abaaoud.
A man in Saint-Denis told reporters that he had rented out the besieged apartment to two people last week.
After entering the apartment, police officers spotted a woman.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the authorities are trying to determine what has happened to Abaaoud and identify who was inside.
Among other thing, Abaaoud had been linked to the April attack on a church in the Parisian suburb of Villejuif in which a person was killed, and to an attack by a gunman on a high-speed train that was thwarted by three young Americans. The French defence ministry said 10 jets had hit two Islamic State command centres in the militants’ base of Raqqa, Syria.
Danish and Norwegian police were asked to be on the lookout for a man Swedish authorities said is wanted in connection with an investigation into “preparation for a terrorist offense”.
Paris and Moscow are not coordinating their air strikes in Syria, but French President Francois Hollande is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on November 26 to discuss how their countries’ militaries might work together.
Abaaoud’s image became grimmer after independent journalists Etienne Huver and Guillaume Lhotellier, visiting the Turkish-Syrian frontier, obtained photos and video a year ago of his exploits across Syria.
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“The terrorists want to erase everything: culture, youth, life, and also history and memory”, Mr. Hollande said in a speech at a Unesco conference in Paris.
