Two Die in Police Raid on Group Planning New Paris Attack

Abdelhamid Abaaoud was a Belgian national in his late 20s.

Police fired around 5,000 rounds of ammunition in the predawn confrontation, an operation that suggested authorities were making headway in their investigations into Friday’s terrorist rampage across Paris but also fed fears of more violence in a city already on edge.

The bodies recovered in the raid were badly mangled, with part of the woman’s spine landing on a police vehicle, complicating formal identification.

Molins said it was not yet clear whether Abaaoud blew himself up.

Hollande said the country would carry out “necessary tests” before allowing refugees in, adding that the reform on asylum candidates would enable the government to refuse asylum status for anyone “whose presence on French soil is a threat”.

The bill is to be debated by both houses of Parliament on Thursday and Friday and expected to be voted on by the end of the week. “I didn’t know them”, the unidentified man told BFMTV.

Abaaoud, 27, is believed to be the mastermind behind the Paris attacks.

Gunfire broke out in the suburb of Saint Denis before dawn on Wednesday, as an elite police unit led the assault.

Heavily armed officers triggered a massive firefight and multiple explosions when they entered the building.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights today said 33 ISIS fighters were killed in the three days of raids on the Syrian-based terror group. Forensic scientists were trying to determine whether a third person had died.

Two police sources and a source close to the investigation told Reuters the St. Denis cell had been planning a fresh attack on Paris’s La Defense business district.

Another police official said a woman wearing an explosive suicide vest blew herself up, and a man was also killed.

Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Abaaoud was implicated in four of six foiled attacks in France since March this year. “This link exists because people from Iraq and Syria live in areas controlled by Islamic State and are killed by those who attack us”.

France called upon its European Union allies Tuesday to assist in its military fight against the extremists.

The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle left the southern port of Toulon on Wednesday for the eastern Mediterranean to participate in intensified air strikes against Islamic State targets.

The president will travel to Washington later this month to meet U.S. President Barack Obama before travelled to Moscow to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Around midnight President Francois Hollande declares a state of emergency and orders tighter border controls.

“France should remain as it is”. But two USA officials said that many, though not all, of those identified were on the U.S.no-fly list.

Meanwhile, the head of the coordinating organization of European Union countries’ police forces told lawmakers that Europe is likely to face further ISIS attacks.