Investigators believe Abaaoud, a Moroccan-born Belgian who had fought for Islamic State in Syria, was the mastermind behind the shootings and bombings at the national football stadium, a famous concert venue and several bars and restaurants. An eighth man is still on the run, and there has been much speculation about a possible ninth attacker.
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Abdelhamid Abaaoud was described as the “Mohammed Atta” of the attacks in Paris.
The count does not include any of the attackers who died.
French security forces have conducted 414 raids, making 60 arrests and seizing 75 weapons, including 11 military-style firearms. Jean-Marc Falcone, speaking Friday on France-Info radio, said he is unable to say if Abdeslam could be back on French territory. Two off-duty United States servicemen and a friend stopped a potential bloodbath when they tackled a man who had opened fire on board.
French media reported, meanwhile, that new security camera video has emerged showing Abaaoud in a Paris subway station just after the Friday attacks, near where a getaway auto was abandoned.
Greek police sources said the arrests were made because the Belgian authorities believed that Abaaoud was calling associates in Belgium from Greece.
Still, it has left Brussels on edge, in particular in Molenbeek, a predominantly Muslim working class area that has come under global scrutiny.
France has called for a global coalition to defeat the extremists and has launched air strikes on Raqqa, the de-facto Islamic State capital in northern Syria, since the weekend.
“A physical surveillance took place which allowed us to establish that the young woman and the militants went into the building in Rue Corbillon in St. Denis on Tuesday early in the evening”, the source said, declining to be identified because he is not authorised to speak officially.
Her final moments were marked by a brief, angry exchange with police before she is believed to have detonated a suicide vest – an explosion that hurled parts of her spine and other body parts onto a police vehicle on the street below.
Mr Valls spoke on French television after authorities confirmed the ringleader of last Friday’s massacre, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was among those killed as police besieged an apartment block in a Paris suburb. The role of Aitboulahcen in the Paris attacks also remained uncertain.
As the police operation neared its end Wednesday, wildly varying reports suggested he could be dead, alive or not even in France.
A vote on extending the state of emergency in the country was already scheduled by the French Senate.
“The risk before us is the collapse of the entire European project if we don’t take our responsibilities”, he told the lawmakers.
In addition, he was suspected of links to two jihadis returning to Europe from Turkey, and a “wannabe jihadi” who upon his arrest in August told French intelligence that he had been recruited by Abaaoud to carry out a “violent act” in France or another European country, the interior minister said.
A draft resolution for Friday’s European Union meeting says ministers will agree to implement “necessary systematic and co-ordinated checks at external borders, including on individuals enjoying the right of free movement”.
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French authorities said there might still be one body in the rubble of the apartment.
