Special to WorldTribune.com

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Reports from a northern Paris suburb say at least two suspects sought in connection with the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in France have been killed and seven others arrested during a raid on an apartment.

Police sources say Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind of last week’s coordinated terrorist attacks in and around Paris, was the focus of the raid in Saint-Denis.

According to earlier reports, Abaaoud was thought to have fled to Belgium or Syria.

Several hours after the raid, it was not clear if he was among those detained or killed as a result of the November 18 raid in Saint-Denis. [Intelligence officials say the presumed mastermind of last week’s devastating attacks in Paris was killed during a shootout with police in a suburb north of the French capital on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported].

“It is currently impossible to give you the identities of the people who were arrested, which are being verified,” Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said in a press conference after the raid.

“Everything will be done to determine who is who,” he added.

Three unnamed sources told Reuters the raid stopped a terrorist cell that had been planning an attack on the Paris business district of La Defense.

Explosions and gunfire were heard during the operation, which began before dawn on November 18.

Authorities said one of the suspects was shot dead and the other, a woman, blew herself up using a suicide belt as the raid began.

Five police officers were also wounded and a police dog was shot and killed by the suspects during the raid.

French prosecutors said seven were arrested after a standoff — including at least three men inside the apartment as well as a man and a woman near the scene of the raid. Their identities were not immediately released.

Authorities reportedly were using DNA tests to confirm the identities of those killed and detained.

AFP reports that the raid also involved the deployment of French military troops after more than an hour of heavy, sustained gunfire by the suspects and a series of explosions.

Residents in the neighborhood of the raid said gunfire woke them up at about 4:20 a.m. and they saw security forces on the roof of a building opposite the apartment.

They said the explosions occurred about three hours after the gunfire began and smashed the windows of the apartment.
Abdeslam Salah (left) and Abdelhamid AbaaoudAbdeslam Salah (left) and Abdelhamid Abaaoud

An AP correspondent described hearing seven blasts that sounded like grenades detonating.

It was not immediately clear if some of those explosions were the result of stun grenades used by security forces in counterterrorism operations.

Shortly before noon, more than seven hours after the raid began, French officials said the operation had been completed.

But shops and schools in Saint-Denis were closed for the day and residents were being advised by the mayor to remain indoors.

Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) militants said they carried out the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed at least 129 people and wounded more than 350.

Before the November 18 raid began, authorities had said that at least eight people were directly involved in the Nov. 13 attacks — including six who detonated suicide vests and one who died in a police shootout.

Officials now say surveillance video has revealed a possible ninth assailant.

As the European dragnet widened for those complicit in the Paris attacks, France and Russia has unleashed a new wave of air strikes against ISil targets in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 33 Islamic State fighters have been killed by French air strikes in and around Raqqa — the main stronghold of IS militants in Syria.

France had been carrying out air strikes against IS militants in Syria in the past but has intensified its attacks since the Nov. 13 ISIL terrorist attacks in and around Paris.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier began operations in the eastern Mediterranean region on November 18 and that 36 French warplanes are now deployed in the region for attacks against IS militants.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the missile cruiser Moskva, currently in the Mediterranean, to start cooperating with the French military on operations in Syria.

His order came as Russian long-range bombers fired cruise missiles on militant positions in Syria’s Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

ISIL militants have positions in Aleppo Province, while the Al Qaid-linked Al-Nusra Front militant group is in Idlib.

Moscow has vowed to hunt down those responsible for blowing up a Russian passenger plane over Egypt on Oct. 31, killing 224 people, mostly Russian tourists. ISIL militants have claimed responsibility for that downing.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with French President Francois Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

Standing with Hollande at the Elysee Palace on Nov. 17, Kerry said the carnage in Paris, along with recent deadly terrorist attacks in Lebanon and Turkey, made it clear that more pressure must be brought to bear on extremists.

He said a cease-fire between Syria’s government and the opposition could be just weeks away, describing it as potentially a “gigantic step” toward deeper international cooperation.

France also reached out to its European Union partners for help, invoking a never-before-used treaty article obliging members of the 28-nation bloc to help a member state that is victim to armed aggression.

“Every country said, I am going to assist, I am going to help,” said Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defense minister.

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.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other officials had been scheduled to attend the game as a sign of defiance to the terrorists.

  Paris ‘mastermind’ reported dead after pre-dawn raid, Seven arrested, shootout in Paris suburb, WorldTribune.com