The Man Suspected Of Planning The Paris Attacks Is Reportedly Dead

Protection… hooded police officers walk in a street of Saint-Denis, near Paris.

The vast probe also led police to discover a cellphone belonging to one of the attackers in a dustbin outside the Bataclan music venue, scene of the worst violence, where 89 people were gunned down.

Senior officials believed Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the man thought to have orchestrated the deadly co-ordinated attacks, was inside the apartment with five other heavily armed people. The fate of the suspected attacks planner, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was unclear.

But he was not among eight people arrested and it remains unknown as to whether he had been in the property.

A police source in Paris told CNN that three suspected terrorists have been killed in the raid, and three police officers have been injured.

French special police of the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) took part in Wednesday’s fighting at Saint-Denis.

Saint-Denise is an area close to the Stade de France, the national stadium that was one of the sites of the November 13 bomb attacks.

“Very sustained gunfire continued for almost an hour”, he said, adding that “the complex nature of the operation required the use of assault rifles, snipers and explosives”.

“It’s necessary to establish direct contact with the French and work with them as allies”, Russian President Vladimir Putin said as France prepared to send an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean.

Five other people were arrested, including three men who were removed from the apartment at the heart of the raid, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

Several shots were heard between 4:30am and 6:30am this morning.

Didier Paillard, the mayor of St Denis, said the Rue du Corbillon, where the raid occurred, had “many buildings and habitats in a disgraceful state”, with a few apartments lacking even electricity and running water.

And the three metro stations in the vicinity have also been closed, leaving residents frustrated.

A bill to extend France’s state of emergency for three months is being presented to a Cabinet meeting.

On Tuesday, officials told The Associated Press they now believe at least one other attacker was involved and they were working to identify and track down that suspect.

The phone reportedly contained a detailed plan for a hostage siege and the message “let’s go”.

She said a friend of hers believed she had seen one of the wanted men, Salah Abdeslam, on Monday. He managed to slip out of France and join Isil in Syria in September 2013, and he became the subject of an global arrest warrant.

He had been linked to a foiled attack on a high-speed train in August, and another foiled attack on a church in Villejuif in France.

Authorities have been looking for the so-called “ninth suspect”, who may appear in a video recorded by a witness to the Paris attacks. Two Air France flights bound for Paris from the US were diverted Tuesday night – one to Salt Lake City and one to Halifax – because of anonymous threats received after they had taken off. Both were inspected and cleared to resume their journeys. “Police then arrived and started checking an apartment in a nearby house”, Boris said.

Two officials say police operation now under way is connected to the investigation into Friday’s attacks that killed 129 people.

Seven of the attackers died during the attacks.