7 arrested, 2 killed in Saint-Denis during Paris terror raid

Officials say seven people have been arrested in a raid on an apartment building where suspects in last week's Paris attacks were holed up. A senior police official and the Paris prosecutor's office say that the seven were arrested Wednesday in the building in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.

They did not identify those detained. Authorities believe there may still be someone still hiding in an apartment. A loud bang rang out in the streets adjacent to the building around the time of the latest arrests.

Suicide bomber killed near Paris

Two suspected terrorists holed up in an apartment north of Paris died during a police siege on Wednesday, including a woman who detonated an explosives vest, according to police sources.

Police said one man was also killed and five people arrested in the standoff, which began before dawn and continued more than five hours later. One person remained holed up in the apartment in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis.

At least four police officers were injured in the operation targeting Belgian jihadist Abdul Hamid Aba Oud, believed to be the mastermind of the attacks in Paris on Friday that killed 129.

Explosions and gunfire rang out early Wednesday as heavily armed police surrounded the suburban Paris apartment where suspects are holed up. A police official said officers exchanged gunfire with the people inside. Police have blocked off the area around Place Jean Jaures in Saint Denis, just north of Paris.

French authorities have said they are searching for at least two people involved in last Friday's deadly attacks. Ambulances can be seen and sirens heard in French television footage from the scene.

Ninth attacker involved in Paris attacks

There was a ninth man involved in Friday's deadly attacks in Paris, the media reported citing investigators. The investigators believe there were nine terrorists involved in the attacks, the report said.

The investigation conducted by the Anti-Terrorism Sub Directorate (SDAT), the Criminal Brigade of Paris and The General Directorate for Internal Security is going on, Xinhua reported.

"A third man was on board" the vehicle which was used to conduct bloodshed on cafe terraces in the 10th and 11th district of Paris, a police source said.

"Investigators are now certain after viewing CCTV tapes. The vehicle was found on Sunday night, abandoned with three Kalashnikovs on board," the report said.

The investigators also made progress in tracing the Syrian passport found next to the stadium Stade de France attacker with the name Ahmad al Mohammad, who was killed several month ago as a former soldier of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, the report said. The fingerprints of the suicide bomber matched those collected during a check in Greece in October 2015.

Hunt on for second terrorist

French police hunted on Tuesday for a second terrorist believed to have escaped after the bomb and gun massacres in Paris, while a US official revealed that the suspected mastermind was part of a Daesh cell that American intelligence agencies had been tracking for months.

Meanwhile, France and Russia unleashed a new wave of airstrikes against Daesh targets in Syria, while fears of further terror attacks deepened in Paris and beyond. The Eiffel Tower closed to the public just a day after it had reopened and a soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands was canceled due to a bomb threat just 90 minutes before kickoff.

Daesh militants have claimed responsibility for the Friday the 13th attacks that targeted France’s national soccer stadium, a packed concert hall and popular restaurants and cafes in one of Paris’ trendiest neighborhoods, killing 129 people and wounding more than 350.

French authorities had previously said that at least eight people were directly involved in the bloodshed Friday: seven who died in the attacks and one who got away and slipped across the border to Belgium. However, there have been gaps in officials’ public statements, which have never fully disclosed how many attackers took part in the deadly rampage.

On Tuesday, officials disclosed to The Associated Press that they now believe at least one more attacker was involved than was previously known, and they were working to identify and track down that suspect.

hree officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to provide details about the ongoing investigation.

A new surveillance video obtained by the AP indicated that a team of three attackers carried out the shootings at one of the cafes. The video was among evidence authorities used in concluding that at least one other attacker was at large, the French officials indicated.

The brief clip shot from a distance shows two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons calmly firing on the bar then returning toward a waiting car, whose driver was maneuvering behind them.

Authorities believe that car is the same black Spanish-made SEAT vehicle that was found abandoned Saturday with three Kalashnikovs inside. In the footage, as the gunmen fire their rifles, patrons can be seen falling down on the pavement as others dashed or crawled away. The encounter lasted only seconds.

Previously officials had not specified how many people were involved in the attack on the sidewalk bar on La Fontaine au Roi street, as well as the other night spots.

In all, six attackers died after detonating suicide belts and one was killed by police gunfire. A manhunt has been mounted for an eighth suspect, Salah Abdeslam, whom French police accidentally permitted to cross into Belgium on Saturday.

One of his brothers, Brahim, was among the attackers who blew themselves up in Paris. Another brother, Mohamed Abdeslam, was arrested after the attacks but released. In an interview Tuesday with French TV station BFM, he urged his brother to turn himself in.

Two men arrested in Belgium, meanwhile, admitted driving to France to pick up Salah Abdeslam early Saturday, but denied any involvement in the attacks, their lawyers said.

Mohammad Amri, 27, and Hamza Attou, 21, are being held on charges of terrorist murder and conspiracy. Belgian media reported the two were being investigated as potential suppliers of the suicide bombs used in the attacks, since ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used to make explosives, was discovered in a search of their residence.

More details emerged about the brothers’ activities leading to the attack. Salah and Brahim Abdeslam booked a hotel in the southeastern Paris suburb of Alfortville and rented a house in the northeastern suburb of Bobigny several days before, a French judicial official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorised to speak about the ongoing investigation.

Austria’s Interior Ministry also disclosed that Salah Abdeslam had entered Austria about two months ago with two unidentified companions.

Officials have identified 27-year-old Abdul Hamid Aba Oud, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the mastermind of the attacks. He is believed to be in Daesh-held territory in Syria.

A US official briefed on intelligence matters said Aba Oud was a key figure in a Daesh external operations cell that US intelligence agencies have been tracking for many months.

Analysts have been debating to what extent the Daesh group was devoting resources to external terrorist attacks, versus seeking to hold onto the territory it has seized in Iraq and Syria. A consensus is now emerging that the group is more focused on exporting terror than had been widely understood.

US intelligence agencies have some insights into who is involved in that effort, said the official, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. But their understanding is hampered by the many challenges of gathering intelligence in Syria, where the CIA does not have a regular presence on the ground.

The chairman of the Senate intelligence committee said Tuesday that it was likely that militants plotting the attacks in Syria, Belgium and France used encryption to hide their communications from authorities.

Senator Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, said there was no direct evidence of encryption, but that authorities had concluded it was used because they have uncovered no evidence of conversations among the plotters.

The statement acknowledges the challenges intelligence agencies face in monitoring records of international phone traffic.

Speaking to reporters after a classified intelligence briefing, Burr also said there is a “strong likelihood” the Paris attacks were directed, rather than just inspired, by the Daesh group in Syria.

The comments were the strongest public attribution yet by American officials. CIA director John Brennan said on Monday the attack bore “the hallmarks of terrorism carried out” by the Daesh group.

Tensions remained high in much of Europe in the wake of the attacks. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower shut down again after opening for just a day Monday, and heavily armed troops patrolled the courtyard of the Louvre Museum.

In the German city of Hannover, an exhibition soccer game between Germany and the Netherlands was canceled at the last minute and the stadium evacuated by police because of a bomb threat. Top government officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, had been scheduled to attend the game as a sign of defiance

Source: KUNA