IANS
PARIS, NOVEMBER 18
A sniper fatally shot a terrorist while a woman suicide bomber blew herself up on Wednesday as elite police personnel mounted an over seven-hour operation in a suburb here to catch the mastermind of the deadly Paris terror attack, authorities said.
French Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed that the police assault was over and that two terrorists were dead and seven had been arrested. He paid tribute to the police personnel who have “never before come under such gunfire”, the media reported.
The raid, which saw a string of massive explosions interspersed with heavy gunfire, was targeted to get Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, a Belgian of Moroccan origin and the alleged mastermind of the November 13 terror attack that killed 129 people and injured over 350 in Paris. It was not clear whether Abaaoud was dead or arrested.
The raid that started around 4.30 a.m. at an apartment in Saint Denis, a suburb with a sizeable immigrant population, went on till noon, France 24 news channel reported.
Christian, a resident of Saint Denis’ rue de la République, told French channel BFMTV that there was noise of gunfire. Later, blasts smashed the windows in the flat and a mattress was flung out of the window, The Telegraph reported.
“I’ve been hearing gunshots continuously, like fireworks... There have been some breaks but... to me it sounds like continuous gunshots,” another resident, Benson Hoi, told the BBC.
Seven suspects were arrested while five policemen were injured.
Paris prosecutor Francois Moulins said that “surveillance and telephone surveillance led us to believe that Abaaoud was in a ‘plotters’ flat in Saint-Denis”.
Police found weapons, explosives, suicide vests and plans for another terrorist attack in the flat, according to Europe1 Radio.
Seven deafening blasts shook Saint Denis after truckloads of armed policemen swarmed the area where terrorists were suspected to be holed up in the apartment.
One of the suspects was shot by a police sniper, while the second, a woman, blew herself up at the very start of the operation, Molins said.
“It is currently impossible to give the identify of those arrested, which is being verified,” Molins added.
Another suspect in the Paris attack, Salah Abdeslam, was also said to be a target in the raid.
Media reports indicated that the woman suicide bomber may have been related to Abaaoud. She fired her AK-47 at police before blowing herself up. A police dog was killed in the suicide bombing.
Roads were blocked off around Rue de la Republique in Saint Denis during the police siege.
At least five people were believed to have been in the targeted third floor flat.
Witnesses told MailOnline that the large explosions may have been caused by the suicide bomber and possibly hand grenades.
As the gun battle raged in Paris, two Air France flights headed from the US to France were diverted due to bomb scare. Both flights landed safely on Tuesday night, the media reported.
Also, a football match between Germany and the Netherlands was cancelled in Hannover in Germany on Tuesday evening after a threat of attacks with explosives was received.
French and Russian air strikes in northern Syria have killed at least 33 jihadists with the Islamic State group in the last 72 hours, a monitoring group said today. Dozens of IS fighters were also wounded in the raids on weapons depots, barracks and checkpoints in the jihadists’ de facto Syrian capital of Raqa, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
France intensified strikes on Raqa following last week’s attacks in Paris that left 129 dead, with warplanes carrying out dozens of raids on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Russia also pounded Raqa with long-range bombers and sea-launched missiles yesterday, after Moscow confirmed that a bomb attack brought down a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last month, killing all 224 people on board. “The limited number of deaths can be explained by the fact that the jihadists had taken precautions,” said Abdel Rahman, who relies on a network of activists, medics and other sources inside Syria. “There were only guards around the depots and barracks and most of those killed were at the checkpoints,” he said. He said many families of foreign fighters had also left the city for Mosul in Iraq, another stronghold of IS, which has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.
French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo has responded to last week’s Paris terror attacks in its trademark controversial fashion.
The cover of the magazine’s latest edition, by cartoonist Coco, depicts a dancing reveller, bottle and glass in hand, with champagne pouring out of holes in his body.
“Ils ont les armes on les emmerde on a le champagne!” the caption reads.
English translation: “They have weapons. F**k them, we have champagne.”
It may be recalled that Charlie Hebdo itself was brutally attacked in January. The attack on its office -- just a short walk from the Bataclan rock concert hall -- decimated their editorial team, killing some of France’s most beloved cartoonists in a rampage that left 17 dead there and elsewhere in the city.
The latest attacks on Friday evening struck several targets in a trendy area of eastern Paris including pavement cafes and the Bataclan rock concert hall, where mostly young people were enjoying a night out, leaving 129 dead overall.
In the latest edition out Wednesday, Charlie Hebdo’s managing editor, Riss, writes: “Blood and tears, prophesied Churchill. That’s where we are. Without realising it, the Parisians of 2015 have sort of become the Londoners of 1940, determined not to yield, neither to fear nor to resignation, whatever catches them off guard.”
According to Riss, Islam “for the past 20 years has become a battleground where radicals want to exterminate non-believers and subdue moderates by force.”
“Avoiding the pitfall of division should not make us renounce the right to criticise religion on the pretext that its exercise is sometimes irritating. Among all the basic freedoms that make up our lives, it is also this freedom that the killers wanted to eliminate this Friday evening,” he adds.
