Paris attacks mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud killed

French authorities have said seven attackers were killed Friday – six who blew themselves up and one who was killed by police.

Police launched the operation after receiving information from tapped phone calls, surveillance and tipoffs suggesting that 27-year-old Abdelhamid Abaaoud was holed up in an apartment in Paris’ Saint-Denis neighborhood. Eight people were arrested in connection with the raids, including two who were pulled out of the rubble.

The operation started at around 4 a.m. ET., when explosions and gunfire could be heard near two apartments in Saint-Denis. “I got out (of the car), masked policemen stopped us and told us to leave”.

As Belgian officials defending their intelligence record pointed out, others among the attackers were based in France, and there were signs those involved had contact with others who have taken part in violence in France before. Until Wednesday morning, officials had said Abaaoud was in Syria.

Investigators quickly identified Abaaoud as the architect of the deadly attacks in Paris, but they believed he had coordinated the assaults against a soccer stadium, cafes and a rock concert from the battlefields of Syria.

“We must not rule anything out”, he said in a speech to the French parliament.

State prosecutors also had been pursuing Abdelhamid Abaaoud, an alleged ringleader of the plot, for dragging his 13-year-old brother with him to join Islamic State militants in Syria.

The French military says it has destroyed 35 Islamic State targets in Syria since last week’s attacks on Paris.

Belgian police are also reportedly searching for a man named Mohamed K, from Roubaix, northern France, who is suspected of supplying the terrorist gang with explosives. He was later arrested by police.

French President Francois Hollande was to hold discussions Wednesday on extending to three months the state of emergency declared after the worst attacks in French history.

“All my life, I have seen the blood of Muslims flow”, Abaaoud said in a video made public in 2014.

France and Russia have vowed merciless retaliation for the Paris attacks and last month’s bombing of a Russian airliner over the Egyptian Sinai peninsula which killed 229 people and was also claimed by IS.

“These acts show once again that we are at war”, Hollande said.

Molins said: “The identities of the people who were arrested in this building are not absolutely certain, but Abaaoud and Salah Abdeslam are not part of the people who have been arrested”. On Tuesday an exhibition match between Germany and the Netherlands was canceled and the stadium in Hannover, Germany, was evacuated because of a bomb threat.

Sources close to the investigation said a third man is now believed to have been in the black Seat auto used by Abdeslam and his brother Brahim as they gunned down people at bars and restaurants in central Paris.

French President Francois Hollande will meet Putin in Moscow on November 26, two days after seeing US President Barack Obama in Washington.

French officials told CNN they have identified a senior member of ISIS – Fabien Clain – who they say helped plan this attack and had a link to a foiled attack in August on the Amsterdam-to-Paris train, as well as foiled attacks on churches in April. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly. 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.