Police execute early morning raids in Paris

He added: “I’m not in a position to give a precise and definitive number for the people who died, nor their identities, but there are at least two dead people”.

The officials refused to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

A police negotiator tried in vain to talk to the men by phone.

-In Italy, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said law enforcement was searching for five people flagged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in response to a USA warning about potential targets following the Paris attacks.

French forensic experts today will be continuing their work to identify whether the Isil mastermind, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was the man killed in the police raid yesterday.

NPR’s Peter Kenyon reports that officials say they are looking for associates of Bilal Hadfi, one of the Islamist attackers who died during the Paris killings on Friday.

A man arrested during the assault told AFP he had lent his apartment, the one targeted by the raid, to two people from Belgium as a favor to a friend.

But the Paris prosecutor has reportedly said Abaaoud isn’t among those arrested in the raid, and the two people killed haven’t been identified.

French President Francois Hollande is going to Washington and Moscow next week to push for a stronger worldwide coalition against IS. In a speech following the police siege, Hollande proclaimed that France is “at war” with the Islamic State group, but warned against overreactions and said no anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic or xenophobic acts will be tolerated. “Our duty is to get on with our lives”.

NAVAL BUILDUP: Britain said one of the Royal Navy’s most advanced warships, the HMS Defender, will support a French aircraft carrier that is on its way to help operations against IS militants in Syria. “Stoking fear is the goal of terrorist organizations”, he said, “but NY City will not be intimidated”. Islamic State jihadists claimed to be behind the coordinated attack Friday on the Stade de France, a rock concert, bars and restaurants.

In its English language magazine, the Islamic State group 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”. The 24-year-old said she felt “very scared” because she didn’t know what was happening and whether it was safe.

SOCCER SCHEDULE STANDS: European soccer body UEFA said all 40 Champions League and Europe League matches scheduled for next week will go ahead as planned, including Paris Saint-Germain’s away match against Swedish club Malmo. France’s sports secretary said French league games would also go ahead.

Gunfire first rang out in the darkness at around 4.00am (0300 GMT) in the streets close to where three suicide bombers had detonated their explosives outside the stadium at the start of Friday’s attacks. He also called for more worldwide co-operation, and said he wants to amend the Belgian constitution to extend the length of time terror suspects can be held by police without charge. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of department rules preventing the official from being named.

Will a few of them turn out to belong to Abaaoud, a senior ISIS member who’s long eluded Western intelligence agencies despite being linked to a series of terrorism plots in Europe?

Eagles of Death Metal, the Californian band playing when the gunmen stormed the building, said Wednesday they were still “horrified” by what happened.