While seeking out possible suspects for last week’s attack in Paris, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up and another militant died on Wednesday during police raids in a Paris Suburb.
Media reports suggest that a jihadist cell that had been planning an attack on Paris's business district, La Defense was stopped by the security forces. The sources say that this was part of the same cell that coordinated bombings and shootings killed 129 across in Paris.
While the police has been on the lookout of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamist militant accused of masterminding the November 13 carnage, it was not certain whether the most wanted terrorist for France was among the dead or arrested even after nine hours after the launch of the pre-dawn raid.
The pre dawn operation started with a barrage of gunfire resulted in the arrest of seven people including three people who were pulled from the apartment, officials said.
"It is impossible to tell you who was arrested. We are in the process of verifying that. Everything will be done to determine who is who," Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said at the end of the operation.
Phone taps and surveillance operations led police to believe that Abaaoud might have been in St. Denis, near to the soccer stadium which was site of one of the attacks that hit Paris last week. The order for the assault was given after this revelation, Molins said.
The attacks in Paris, which are being viewed as the worst since World War Two, according to the investigators, was set in motion from Syria, with Islamist cells in neighboring Belgium organizing the mayhem.
The Wednesday’s operation began at around 4:30 am local time.
"We could see bullets flying and laser beams out of the window. There were explosions. You could feel the whole building shake," said Sabrine, a downstairs neighbor from the apartment that was raided, told Reuters.
She told Europe 1 radio that she heard the people above her talking to each other, running around and reloading their guns.
A young woman detonated an explosion as the operation gathered pace, said another local, Sanoko Abdulai.
"She had a bomb, that's for sure. The police didn't kill her, she blew herself up...," he told Reuters, without giving details.
Three police officers and a passerby were injured in the assault. A police dog was also killed.
The responsibility of the Paris attacks have been claimed by the Islamic state which controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq. The terrorist organization said that they were in retaliation for French air raids against their positions over the past year.
A day after the attacks, French air force retaliated with multiple strikes on Raqqa -- the de-facto Islamic State capital in northern Syria. Even as the terror hit country has called for a global coalition to defeat the radicals.
Russia has also targeted the city in retribution for the downing of a Russian airliner last month that killed 224 people.
At least 33 Isis militants have been killed over the past three days in the joint French Russian air raids, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group on Wednesday.
(Source:www.reuters.com)
Media reports suggest that a jihadist cell that had been planning an attack on Paris's business district, La Defense was stopped by the security forces. The sources say that this was part of the same cell that coordinated bombings and shootings killed 129 across in Paris.
While the police has been on the lookout of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamist militant accused of masterminding the November 13 carnage, it was not certain whether the most wanted terrorist for France was among the dead or arrested even after nine hours after the launch of the pre-dawn raid.
The pre dawn operation started with a barrage of gunfire resulted in the arrest of seven people including three people who were pulled from the apartment, officials said.
"It is impossible to tell you who was arrested. We are in the process of verifying that. Everything will be done to determine who is who," Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said at the end of the operation.
Phone taps and surveillance operations led police to believe that Abaaoud might have been in St. Denis, near to the soccer stadium which was site of one of the attacks that hit Paris last week. The order for the assault was given after this revelation, Molins said.
The attacks in Paris, which are being viewed as the worst since World War Two, according to the investigators, was set in motion from Syria, with Islamist cells in neighboring Belgium organizing the mayhem.
The Wednesday’s operation began at around 4:30 am local time.
"We could see bullets flying and laser beams out of the window. There were explosions. You could feel the whole building shake," said Sabrine, a downstairs neighbor from the apartment that was raided, told Reuters.
She told Europe 1 radio that she heard the people above her talking to each other, running around and reloading their guns.
A young woman detonated an explosion as the operation gathered pace, said another local, Sanoko Abdulai.
"She had a bomb, that's for sure. The police didn't kill her, she blew herself up...," he told Reuters, without giving details.
Three police officers and a passerby were injured in the assault. A police dog was also killed.
The responsibility of the Paris attacks have been claimed by the Islamic state which controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq. The terrorist organization said that they were in retaliation for French air raids against their positions over the past year.
A day after the attacks, French air force retaliated with multiple strikes on Raqqa -- the de-facto Islamic State capital in northern Syria. Even as the terror hit country has called for a global coalition to defeat the radicals.
Russia has also targeted the city in retribution for the downing of a Russian airliner last month that killed 224 people.
At least 33 Isis militants have been killed over the past three days in the joint French Russian air raids, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group on Wednesday.
(Source:www.reuters.com)
