Authorities have identified one of the three killed in Wednesday’s raid in Saint-Denis as the suspected mastermind of last Friday’s massacres, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Advertisement
Abdelhamid Abaaoud and two other people died after hundreds of police raided the Saint Denis flat early on Wednesday.
Investigators quickly identified Abaaoud as the architect of the deadly attacks in Paris, but they believed he had coordinated the assaults against a soccer stadium, cafes and a rock concert from the battlefields of Syria.
Three police officials say a woman who died in the raid was Abaaoud’s cousin.
The French lower house of parliament voted on Thursday to extend its state of emergency, although the upper house must approve the measure before it is officially put in place.
“We must not rule anything out”, Valls said. “We know that there could also be a risk of chemical or biological weapons…” This is under a police directive issued to coincide with the state of emergency.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the identities of the dead – including a female suicide bomber – are still being investigated, but that neither Abaaoud nor another fugitive, Salah Abdeslam, is in custody.
He had been implicated in four thwarted French terror plots this year, France’s interior minister said, deploring the fact that no-one had flagged his presence in Europe.
As worldwide efforts to fight the Islamic State group stepped up, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Russian Federation was “sincere” in wanting to cooperate against IS, despite deep divisions on whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should stay in power.
The area of the raids is close to the Stade de France, one of multiple locations attacked on 13 Friday 2015.
Officials said later that there was no reason to suspect an immediate threat of a chemical or biological attack but that Mr Valls thought it necessary to place the country on guard. The French lawmakers are debating on a bill extending the state of emergency for another three months.
Abaaoud was believed to be in Syria after a January police raid in Belgium, but bragged in Islamic State propaganda of his ability to move back and forth between Europe and Syria undetected.
The government has not ordered measures to control the press, which are in theory provided for in the 1955 law, which was passed during France’s war in Algeria.
The new measures mean anyone suspected of posing a threat to security can be placed under house arrest for 12 hours a day to restrict their movement.
Advertisement
The Bill will also allow off-duty police officers to carry their weapons to allow them to respond faster to an emergency.
