A third person was killed in the anti-terror raid that targeted the Paris attack ringleader, officials confirmed Friday as the hunt continued for a suspected accomplice.
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The apartment was severely damaged in the raid and police have now uncovered a third body, a woman, in the rubble. RTBF said police were assessing whether Abdeslam had again eluded them.
Abdelslam, who is believed to have helped carry out the Paris attacks, became Europe’s most wanted fugitive after an global arrest warrant was issued for him.
He claimed to have escaped a continent-wide manhunt after a police raid in Belgium in 2013 in which two other militants were killed.
Still, it has left Brussels on edge, in particular in Molenbeek, a predominantly Muslim working class area that has come under worldwide scrutiny.
French investigation sources told Reuters that she and her accomplices were about to launch another attack – this time on Paris’s La Defense financial district.
The 28-year-old was thought to have been in Syria – where he had boasted of planning attacks on the West – and his presence in France will renew debate about Europe s border controls and monitoring of fighters returning from the war-torn country.
A jihadist woman was not the suicide bomber who police say detonated herself during a police raid in Saint-Denis on Wednesday.
During the raid, police took in eight people for questioning, five from inside the building in the northern St. Denis suburb and three from outside, including a man who said he was in charge of the property and is still being held.
He was linked to a plot in April to attack a church near Paris.
“It was only on November 16, after the Paris attacks, that an intelligence service outside Europe signaled that it had been aware that he had been in Greece”, he said, without specifying when Abaaoud was spotted there and who gave France the intelligence.
Since the Belgian connection was discovered, the government has vowed to tighten security and crack down on suspected extremists.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel advised the public to be alert rather than panic-stricken, but said the raised security level was due to the “serious and imminent” threat of Paris-style coordinated attacks. “But we know and bear in mind that there is also a risk of chemical or bacteriological weapons”, Valls said, speaking to parliament ahead of the state of emergency vote.
Valls made the announcement in a speech to the Senate, which is expected to approve a three-month extension to France’s state of emergency.
Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Europe must exchange information on the gun trade. Cazeneuve has requested a meeting of European interior and justice ministers in Brussels to discuss global strategy in the ongoing fight against terrorism.
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A poll conducted by IFOP for the Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper showed 27 percent of respondents were satisfied with French President Francois Hollande following the Paris attacks, up from a 2015 low of 20 last month.
