French official says tip received on Monday about Abaaouds whereabouts

“Abdelhamid Abaaoud played a crucial role in the terrorist attacks that rocked Paris on November 13”, the French interior minister said at a press conference aired by BFMTV television on Thursday.

The Belgian extremist suspected of masterminding the deadly attacks in Paris died a day ago along with his female cousin in a police raid on a suburban apartment building, French officials said Thursday, adding it was…

French police today launched a raid targeting Abaaoud in the Paris suburb of St Denis.

Media in Belgium said Abaaoud had been involved in a series of attacks planned in Belgium and foiled by the police last January.

Mr Cazeneuve said the French government was only informed on Monday of Abaaoud’s whereabouts by an intelligence service “outside of Europe”.

The Islamic State group is aggressively pursuing development of chemical weapons, setting up a branch dedicated to research and experiments with the help of scientists from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the region, … In a database on European foreign fighters compiled by IHS in September 2014, he was identified as one of the key figures in the Belgian contingent fighting with the Islamic State. A woman blew herself up with a suicide vest.

The raid, which focused the efforts of more than 100 military and law enforcement officers on an apartment north of Paris, also resulted in the arrest of three other suspects.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the operation neutralised a “new terrorist threat”, and that “everything led us to believe that, considering their armaments, the structured organisation and their determination, they were ready to act”.