A woman blew herself up and a suspected jihadist was killed Wednesday in a
massive police assault in Paris targeting the possible mastermind of France’s worst-
ever terror attacks.
Gunfire and explosions rocked the Saint-Denis
area in the north of the city, near the Stade de
France stadium, from before dawn as terrified
residents were evacuated or told to stay in their
homes.
Authorities arrested seven people and five
police officers suffered minor injuries in the
operation — a seven-hour stand-off between
security forces and a group of people holed up
in an apartment.
Black-clad elite police were seen hauling away a
naked suspect in the streets near where three
suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the
football stadium at the start of Friday’s attacks.
After the raid, white-suited forensic experts
swarmed the building as police tried to verify if
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected
mastermind of Friday’s attacks in Paris that
killed 129 people, had been in the apartment.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said a probe
into the attacks allowed police “to obtain
telephonic surveillance and witness testimony
which led us to believe that Abaaoud was likely
to be in an… apartment in Saint-Denis”.
However, Molins added it was too early to say if
he was among those arrested or killed.
Abaaoud is an Islamic State fighter who was
previously thought to be in Syria after fleeing
raids in his native Belgium earlier this year.
Residents of the Paris suburb, some of whom
were evacuated in their underwear, said they
had been caught in a terrifying exchange of fire.
Hayat, 26, had been leaving a friend’s apartment
where she had spent the night when the shots
erupted.
“I heard gunfire,” she said. “I could have been
hit by a bullet. I never thought terrorists could
have hidden here.”
Seven jihadists were killed or blew themselves
up in the attacks on the stadium, a concert hall,
bars and restaurants that were claimed by the
Islamic State group operating in Iraq and Syria.
All of those killed in the attack have now been
identified, a statement from the French cabinet
said.
Police are hunting for two other individuals,
including 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, suspected
of taking part in the attacks with his suicide-
bomber brother Brahim.
The attack is unprecedented in France, which
was shaken to its core for the second time in a
year after a three-day jihadist killing spree that
left 17 dead on January.
– ‘Don’t give in to fear’ –
French President Francois Hollande praised
security forces for their role in “the particularly
perilous and taxing” operation which he said
proved the country was involved in a “war
against terrorism”.
He told a gathering of mayors that municipal
police would be given more weapons and
equipment from the stock of the national police.
But Hollande urged the nation not to “give in to
fear” or excessive reactions in the wake of the
attacks.
“No anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim act can be
tolerated,” he said.
The body representing Muslims in France said it
would ask all 2,500 mosques in the country to
condemn “all forms of violence or terrorism” in
prayers this Friday.
The message will condemn such acts
“unambiguously”, the French Muslim Council
said.
France is still under a state of emergency which
lawmakers will vote to extend on Thursday and
Friday.
– Strikes in Syria –
As police stepped up the hunt for the fugitives,
French and Russian jets pounded IS targets in
the group’s Syrian stronghold of Raqa for a
third consecutive day.
A monitoring group said the air strikes had
killed at least 33 IS jihadists in the last 72 hours.
France and Russia have vowed merciless
retaliation for the Paris attacks and last month’s
bombing of a Russian airliner over the Egyptian
Sinai peninsula which killed 229 people and was
also claimed by IS.
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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday
that “it is necessary to establish direct contact
with the French and work with them as allies”.
The attacks have galvanised international
resolve to destroy the jihadist group and end
Syria’s more than four-year civil war, while
potentially restoring ties between Russia and
France that had collapsed since last year’s
Ukraine crisis.
Highlighting US fears over the attack, two Air
France flights bound for Paris from the United
States were diverted Tuesday and landed safely
after anonymous threats that the carrier
described as a “bomb scare”.
Posted by: Philip Ochika