Third body found at scene of French police shootout with Paris attackers

Paris – A week after the deadliest attacks on France in decades, shell-shocked Parisians honoured the 130 victims with candles and songs on Friday, knowing that at least one suspect is still at large and fearing that other militants could be slipping through Europe’s porous borders.

A tiled wall riddled with bullet holes shows the effects of more gunfire from the stand-off in the Paris suburb, in which three people were killed, including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the man believed to be behind the attacks in the French capital.

Police have said another woman who died in the police raid was Abaaoud’s cousin.

The top suspect behind last week’s Paris attacks was watched by police being led into a building by a woman suicide bomber the evening before they both died there during a raid by special forces, a police source said on Friday, APA reports quoting Reuters.

It has also emerged the 26-year-old had been under police surveillance because her name had been linked to a drug-trafficking case.

Abaaoud’s mangled body was identified on Thursday.

In Brussels, Mrs May said the Paris attacks, which left 129 dead, underlined the need for improved security across the EU.

Abaaoud was caught on camera in the east of Paris after the initial wave of shootings, heading into a metro station not far from an abandoned black Seat Leon which had three AK47 assault rifles, five full ammunition clips and 11 empty clips inside.

Meanwhile, Belgian media is reporting that several witnesses have spotted one of the suspected attacks gunmen, Salah Abdeslam, in Brussels.

Interior Minister Cazeneuve said France only found out after last week’s attacks that Abaaoud was in Europe.

As debate raged about the failings that had let Abaaoud slip through the net, Mr Valls urged France’s neighbours to “play their role properly”, saying the whole Schengen system would be “called into question… if Europe does not take responsibility” for its borders.

The measures include allowing police to carry weapons when they are off duty and use them in the event of an attack – providing they wear a police armband to avoid “any confusion”, according to a directive.

French President Francois Hollande is also going to Washington and Moscow next week to push for a stronger global coalition against IS.

Under an anti-terrorism law introduced in 2006, terrorism suspects can be held for up to six days if there is a serious risk of an imminent act of terrorism, or for global co-operation.

“The negotiations have taken too long, that must be concluded,”she said”.

Molins said investigators were still trying to identify the recipient of the message.

European governments thought he was still in Syria until a tip-off from Morocco that he was in France at the time of the attacks, the worst in the country since the Second World War.

“We ask the French authorities…to publicly make the relevant clarification”, the ministry said.