European Union leaders in emergency talks on border controls
At least two bodies were found in the apartment in Saint-Denis after a shootout and siege with elite police units.
Belgian federal prosecutors said an investigating judge had charged the person, who was not identified, with participating in terrorist attacks and in the activities of a terrorist organisation.
A French security official said Abaaoud was seen on a surveillance camera in the subway at around the time of the shootings and suicide bombings on Friday.
France has called for inter-European flights to be included in the data sweep and wants the information it retains – names, credit card details, itineraries and other personal data -to be kept for a year instead of a month.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said a few of the attackers had taken advantage of Europe s migrant crisis to “slip in” unnoticed and warned the cherished passport-free Schengen zone would be in danger if the bloc did not improve border controls.
News of Abaaoud’s death came as Belgian authorities detained seven people during several raids Thursday morning in Molenbeek, a Brussels district. The raids were linked to one of the suicide bombers in last week’s attacks, Bilal Hadfi, and “his entourage”, a Belgian official said.
Her cousin, Islamist militant Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged ringleader of the terror attacks, is also confirmed to have died in the raid. Abaaoud was initially hard to identify, they added, because his body is “riddled” with bullets. Police say she died when another terrorist next to her detonated a bomb.
A Jewish teacher has been stabbed in Marseille by three people claiming to be Islamic State supporters.
Abaaoud was involved in a planned attack on churchgoers in the Paris suburb of Villejuif and investigations are continuing into his possible involvement in an attempted attack on a Thalys train between Amsterdam and Paris in August, he said. (“Police do not believe that Abaaoud was in fact related to Aitboulahcen”, The Washington Post says, “but the police source said that the caller referred to him that way.”) Moroccan authorities also reportedly helped lead police to the apartment. His brother, Brahim Abdeslam, blew himself up at a bar on Boulevard Voltaire during Friday’s attacks, but did not kill anyone.
The French capital’s police department issued a statement Saturday saying the ban is being extended because of “the current context”, including a nationwide state of emergency that’s been extended for three months.