The bullet-riddled body of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, was among two suspects found in the rubble following a police assault on an apartment in Saint Denis, according to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins.
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As the Paris probe widened to countries across Europe, Belgian police arrested nine people in Brussels, seven of them in raids linked to a suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the French national stadium last Friday, prosecutors said.
“We know today… that the mastermind of the attacks – or one of them, let’s remain cautious – was among those dead”, Valls told reporters.
Also on Thursday, the French National Assembly voted to extend the state of emergency for three months following the Paris massacre.
NBC News added that Abaaoud has been linked to a number of other terror activities, including a thwarted attack on a high-speed train bound for Paris, as well as on a church near the French capital earlier this year.
The latest on the deadly attacks in Paris.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud is believed to have been the main perpetrator behind the massacre in the French capital last Friday, which killed 129 people and injured a further 368 individuals.
French prosecutors confirm that the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks was killed during a police raid.
Georges Salinas, the deputy commander of the elite BRI police unit, said in a radio interview that identification took so long because the entire third floor of the building at 8, Rue de Corbillion had collapsed.
The officials say the woman’s exact relationship with Abaaoud has not been confirmed.
News of Abaaoud’s death came as Belgian authorities detained seven people during several raids Thursday morning in Molenbeek, a Brussels district.
Cazeneuve also said that Abaaoud was implicated in four out six terror plots that have been foiled in France since Spring this year.
Before the attacks, European governments thought Abaaoud was still in Syria.
Another person was also killed in the raid, a woman who blew herself up with an explosives vest at the beginning.
As we’ve reported, authorities believed that Abaaoud was issuing orders from Syria. The state of emergency expands police powers to carry out arrests and searches, and allows authorities to forbid the movement of people and vehicles at specific times and places.
A series of explosions rang out as the police closed in on the dwelling and one suspect was seen being dragged away, his bare buttocks exposed. The measure still has to be approved by the Senate.
Addressing lawmakers, Prime Minister Manuel Valls described Abaaoud as the “brain of these attacks”.
“Middle East experts know that Daesh [Islamic State] seeks and uses chemical weapons”, the spokesman told Le Monde.
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French military spokesman Col. Gilles Jaron said Thursday that French forces have destroyed 35 Islamic State targets in Syria since the attacks on Paris.
