French confirm Paris mastermind killed in police raid

“Abdel Hamid Abaaoud has just been formally identified, after comparing fingerprints, as having been killed during the (police) raid [north of Paris]”, the office said in a statement on Thursday. A French official says Abdelhamid Abaaoud is the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks was also linked to thwarted train and church attacks. There were focused on homes of family members and friends of one of the accused terrorists police say set off bombs outside last Friday’s soccer match between France and Germany in Paris. The Associated Press reported Thursday the woman, Hasna Aitboulahcen, was Abaaoud’s cousin.

At the President’s request, France’s lower house voted Thursday to extend this state of emergency for three more months. In addition, authorities have not detailed his exact whereabouts or actions during the deadly rampage that killed 129 people last week in Paris.

But the hunt continuing for two other fugitives suspected of direct involvement in Friday’s killings.

Prosecutor Francois Molins said on Wednesday that the raid in Saint-Denis had stopped a “new team of terrorists” who were ready to launch another attack in a city still mourning 129 dead.

Molins has said the bloody attacks on Paris shops, restaurants, a concert hall and the Stade de France – barely two kilometres from the scene of Wednesday’s shootout – were carried out by a Belgium-based cell in close contact with Islamic State in Syria. He said he had asked Commission officials to study options for closer ties between the EU and the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union of former Soviet states. An official in the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said the raids targeted people in Hadfi’s “entourage”.

A country outside of Europe tipped off Paris on Monday that Abaaoud had been spotted in Greece, Cazeneuve said, but he did not say when exactly Abaaoud was believed to have been there. One woman wearing explosives blew herself up as police stormed the building, prosecutors said, bringing down the ceiling. Forensic scientists were trying to determine whether a third person had died.

A manhunt is still ongoing for Ibrahim Abdeslam’s brother, Belgium-born Salah Abdeslam, who has been named a key suspect in the attacks.

President Francois Hollande said the “particularly perilous” operation in Saint-Denis proved France was involved in a “war against terrorism”. The measure still has to be approved by the Senate.

Cazeneuve added that he has called for a meeting with other European countries to talk about ways they can bolster cooperation on border controls and the fight against weapons trafficking.

In its English-language magazine, Islamic State said it will continue its violence and “retaliate with fire and bloodshed” for insults against the Prophet Muhammad and “the multitudes killed and injured in crusader airstrikes”. “But we know and bear in mind that there is also a risk of chemical or bacteriological weapons”, Valls said.