Explosions and gunfire broke out at an apartment in a Paris suburb as French police launched a raid against suspects in Friday’s terrorist attacks.
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Belgian authorities had suspected Abaaoud of being the head of a terror cell which was smashed in January in the wake of the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Authorities in Saint-Denis earlier evacuated residents from the apartment building where the suspects were holed up.
Anti-terrorist police flooded the streets near the building and soldiers were also drafted in for an operation that lasted around seven hours. A female suicide bomber was among those killed in the raid.
The French president again blamed the Islamic State for the attacks, saying they have proven to have an army, financial support, territory as well as allies “in Europe, including in our country with young, radicalized people”.
At least two people were killed – a woman thought to have blown herself up with a suicide vest and another body that was found riddled with bullets, the prosecutor said.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, believed to be 27, was thought to have been the focus of a raid on a Paris flat overnight.
A man is apparently arrested by police officers in Saint-Denis.
“The police arrived and they said, “Get out quick!” Molins said that Abaaoud was not among those arrested.
THE UNITED STATES warned France about the ringleader of last week’s terrorist attacks several months ago. “I don’t know where they came from I don’t know anything”.
He said the suspects targeted in the raid were ready to act.
Roads were blocked off around Rue de la Republique in Saint Denis, in the same district as the Stade de France where suicide attackers detonated bombs on Friday. Eight people were arrested and forensic scientists were working to confirm if two or three militants died in the violence.
The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named according to police rules but is informed routinely about the operation, said scores of police stormed the building and were met with unexpectedly violent resistance.
It is not clear if this ninth attacker is one of two suspected accomplices detained in Belgium or is someone still on the run.
Police fired around 5,000 rounds of ammunition in the predawn confrontation, an operation that suggested authorities were making headway in their investigations into Friday’s terrorist rampage across Paris but also fed fears of more violence in a city already on edge.
(Vatican Radio) Heavy gunfire has been heard early Wednesday morning in a north Paris suburb, reportedly in connection with a manhunt for fugitives involved in last Friday’s terror attacks in which 129 people were killed.
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He added: “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”.
