Paris attacks ‘mastermind’ killed in police raid

In a statement released Thursday, the Paris prosecutor’s office said that Abaaoud’s body was found in the Saint-Denis building riddled with bullets.

The Paris public prosecutor, François Molins, had said on Wednesday that neither Abaaoud nor Salah Abdeslam, another fugitive sought in connection with Friday’s terror, were among the eight people arrested at the scene.

According to the official, one of the officers asked: “Where is your boyfriend?” and she responded angrily: “He’s not my boyfriend!” Then there was an explosion.

They also hunt for the suspected mastermind of the attacks, Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

How and when Abaaoud entered France before his death remained unclear. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence on the IS program. Officials were led to the Saint-Denis apartment on Wednesday after combing through cellphone records and surveillance video that made them suspect Abaaoud was still in Paris, not in Syria as they originally suspected.

Speculation about his activities and movements has proliferated since officials began linking him to the Paris attacks in recent days, with many observers assuming he was operating in Syria.

Authorities are using the state of emergency declared by President Francois Hollande to carry out a widespread clampdown on potential terrorist threats, detaining dozens of people, putting more than 100 others under house arrest and seizing an alarming array of weapons.

Earlier Mr Valls warned of the risk of a chemical or biological weapons attack by associates of the Paris jihadis.

“We will blow it up, the same as we blew up the idols in this good land”, one fighter says, referring to the White House.

He told lawmakers that security personnel will be increased and special attention will be paid to eradicating messages of hate. “There were many people who didn’t take it seriously, but effectively it was confirmed”.

“All democratic forces have to work together to strengthen our security”, Michel said.

Authorities initially gave Abaaoud’s age as 27, but on Thursday, Paris prosecutors said he was 28.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud has been named by French officials as the “presumed” mastermind of the co-ordinated attacks. “But if all the countries in the world aren’t capable of fighting against 30,000 people (IS members), it’s incomprehensible”.

At the coaxing of President Francois Hollande and restaurateurs, Parisians have rallied behind the hastag #TousAuBistrot, basically “everyone to the bistro” or “back to the bar”.

This undated image made available in the Islamic State’s English-language magazine Dabiq, shows Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Investigators have discovered at least one piece of evidence that could help them in their search: One of the attacker’s cell phones was found in a trash bin outside the Bataclan concert hall, where most of Friday’s victims were gunned down. “We’re off, it’s started”, it read.

Authorities are trying to determine who the recipient of that message was, he said.

Prosecutors have identified five of the seven attackers who died: four Frenchmen and a foreigner who was fingerprinted in Greece last month and later claimed asylum in Serbia.