2 killed, 7 held in raids on possible hiding place of Paris attack leader
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AMID gunfire and explosions, police yesterday raided a suburban Paris apartment where the suspected mastermind of last week’s attacks was believed to be holed up. The siege ended with two deaths and seven arrests but no clear information on the fugitive’s fate.
The dead were a woman who blew herself up with an explosive vest and a man hit by projectiles and grenades, the Paris prosecutor said at the end of the seven-hour siege in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said the raid was launched after information from tapped telephone conversations, surveillance and witness accounts indicated that the suspected planner of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, might be in a safe house in the district.
Authorities could not immediately confirm whether Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamic State militant, was killed or arrested.
Investigators identified the 27-year-old, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the chief architect of Friday’s attacks in Paris, which killed 129 people and injured 350 others.
A United States official said Abaaoud was a key figure in an IS external operations cell that US agencies have been tracking for months. He was believed to be in Syria after a January police raid in Belgium, but bragged in IS propaganda of his ability to move back and forth between Europe and Syria undetected.
Speaking at the scene of yesterday’s raid, Molins said the operation began with a predawn shootout and resulted in the capture of three people inside the apartment, the death of a woman who set off an explosive charge, and the death of “another terrorist ... who was hit by projectiles and grenades” in the initial assault.
Two people were caught while trying to hide and two others were arrested, including the man who had provided the apartment and an acquaintance of his. Police at the scene were seen escorting away a man who was naked from the waist down, and another wrapped in a gold emergency blanket.
“As things stand, it is impossible to give you the identities of the people,” Molins said.
“All will be done to determine who is who ... we’ll tell you who was in the apartment and what consequences it will have for the development of the investigation,” he said.
A police official not authorized to be named said four police officers were injured.
French President Francois Hollande praised the bravery of the security services and said France was “at war” with terrorism by the Islamic State group.
In Saint-Denis yesterday, riot police cordoned off an area around the building and cleared people from the streets.
Locals said the first explosion shook the neighborhood shortly after 4am. Resident Baptiste Marie, 26, said a second large explosion was followed by “two more explosions” and “an hour of gunfire.”
Another witness, Amine Guizani, said he heard the sound of grenades and automatic gunfire. “It was continuous. It didn’t stop,” he said.
“It lasted from 4:20 until 5:30. It was a good hour. I couldn’t say how many shots were fired, but it was probably 500. Hundreds, definitely. There were maybe 10 explosions.”
Police said before the raids they were hunting for two fugitives suspected of taking part in Friday’s raids as well as any accomplices.
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