Paris attacks: Mastermind believed killed in police raid

An early morning assault by French police on a group of terrorists early Wednesday targeted the organizer of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, said French Prosecutor Francois Molins.

A woman in a suicide vest – possibly one of Abaaoud’s cousins – blew herself up amid the tense standoff, police said.

Police were led to the apartment in St. Denis following a tip-off that the 28-year-old Abaaoud, previously thought to have orchestrated the November 13 attacks from Syria, was actually in France.

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“I heard gunfire. I could have been hit by a bullet”, she said.

François Molins, the Paris public prosecutor, said he could not confirm The Washington Post report and that the body of one of two people killed in the seven-hour siege has yet to be identified.

Since then he has travelled back to Europe at least once and was involved in a series of planned attacks in Belgium foiled by the police last January.

When they entered the building they found a body that had fallen from the third floor to the second, he told the French newspaper Le Figaro. Two have not been identified and the investigation continues, Molins said.

They included two people who were trying to hide in the rubble after the gunfire and explosions, and the man who provided the apartment.

The rumors became even more frenzied early Wednesday as it emerged that he was the potential target of the raid in Saint-Denis, the same area where ISIS suicide bombers had blown themselves up Friday outside the national stadium as the French soccer team played Germany inside.

The scores of officers were met with unexpectedly violent resistance: At least four cops sustained minor injuries in the clashes and a police dog name Diesel was killed, officials said.

Friday night’s attacks, claimed by Islamic State militants, raised security concerns around the world.

Brett Mason of SBS told Mike Hosking the mastermind of last Friday night’s attacks, Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud, was killed during the operation. A Spanish security official said Wednesday that French authorities have sent out a bulletin to police across Europe asking them to watch out for a Citroen Xsara auto that could be carrying Abdeslam. But two US officials said that many, though not all, of those identified were on the U.S.no-fly list.

Investigators have found encrypted apps on the phones, which appear to have left no trace of messages or any indication of who would have been receiving them, according to officials briefed on the French investigation. He called for an worldwide coalition to destroy the group, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq.

French authorities declared a state of emergency after the attacks, and security forces have conducted 414 raids, making 60 arrests and seizing 75 weapons, including 11 military-style firearms, the Interior Ministry said. He said France would remain: “a country of movement”. Rome’s prefect, Franco Gabrielli, said authorities were prepared to shoot down drones and ultralight aircraft if they violate the air space ban. “I don’t know where they came from I don’t know anything”, the man told Reuters Television.