French police fired nearly 5,000 rounds during a ferocious firefight north of Paris with a fourth terrorist cell that was “ready to strike” – but it was not yet clear whether the alleged mastermind of last week’s attacks in the French capital was among those killed in the onslaught.
The Paris public prosecutor, François Molins, said on Wednesday at least two people were killed in the assault targeting Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud, the suspected planner of the attacks that left 129 people dead and more than 350 injured. The dead have not yet been identified.
The 27-year-old Belgian extremist and another fugitive sought in connection with Friday’s wave of attacks, Salah Abdeslam, were not among the eight people arrested during the seven-hour operation in St-Denis, which involved more than 100 heavily armed anti-terrorist police and Swat teams.
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Molins confirmed a woman, identified by police sources as Abu Oud’s cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen, blew herself up by detonating an explosive vest, and a man was killed by police sniper fire or a grenade during the raid on an apartment in the town.
Identification was difficult because the bodies have to be pieced back together after multiple explosions and the lengthy siege, said the prosecutor. The building was so badly damaged that walls and floors risked collapsing around the investigators.
The prosecutor confirmed that three terrorist commandos in three Belgian-registered rental cars and “armed with a veritable arsenal of war” had carried out the series of bombings and shootings on cafes, restaurants, a packed concert hall and the national stadium, which is a mile and a half (2km) from the scene of Wednesday’s shootout.
“A fourth cell of terrorists has been neutralised,” Molins said. “Everything leads to the conclusion that they were ready to act.” Five police officers and a passerby were injured in the assault, and a police dog was killed.
Molins said the the operation began at 4.20am after phone taps and surveillance following a tipoff on Monday led police to believe Abu Oud, who moved to Syria in 2014 to fight with Islamic State but is known to have returned to Europe at least once since, was in France and possibly in the apartment block.
Three men were arrested in the apartment, on the third floor of a run-down house in the rue du Corbillon, at about 4.45am (0345 GMT), Molins said, and two more detained in the rubble of a neighbouring apartment.
The man who let the men into the apartment, Jawad Bendaoud, and a female friend, were arrested in the street. Bendaoud told reporters before being led away that a friend had asked him to put up two friends for a few days. He added: “I didn’t know they were terrorists.” The woman said the two visitors arrived two days ago. Two of those arrested were taken to hospital.
The French president, François Hollande, held an emergency cabinet meeting at the Élysée Palace to monitor the raid. Addressing a gathering of France’s mayors later in the day, he said Wednesday’s shootout had confirmed France was “in a war … what these terrorists wanted to target was what France represents”.
“That’s what was attacked on 13 November. These barbarians targeted France in its diversity. It is the youth of France that was targeted, because quite simply it represents life.”
An emergency meeting of EU interior ministers on Friday will discuss a raft of French demands for significantly tougher security and passenger information checks, improved intelligence sharing and tighter restrictions on arms sales and cash transfers.
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Isis again claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks and pledged to carry out more, saying its “brave knights” had “brought Paris down to its knees, after years of French conceit in the face of Islam”.
The French health minister told parliament that of the 352 people injured during Friday’s attacks 195 were still in hospital, including 41 in intensive care and three in a life-threatening condition.
The French interior ministry said police had searched a further 118 addresses across the country on Tuesday night, leading to 25 arrests and the seizure of 34 weapons. More than 400 houses have been raided and 60 people detained since France declared a state of emergency on Friday night.
Frightened residents of St-Denis said they had been woken up soon after 4am to find themselves in a war zone. Fatima Bourahli, 26, wore a coat over her pyjamas as she stood in the street while the raid was under way. Soldiers in camouflage with automatic weapons crouched nearby.
“My daughter is six and she’s scared and confused,” she said. “People are really scared and pretty tense. The government says we’re at war.”
“What can you say?” asked Djamila Khaldi, a 54-year-old cleaner. “Terrorism has come to St-Denis, the mood has changed and it will stay that way. People are distrustful, looking at each other. St-Denis will be labelled for this now. It’s a real shame.”
Wednesday’s operation came after police recovered a mobile phone from a dustbin near the Bataclan concert hall, where 89 people died, Molins said, with a map of the popular concert hall. A text message on the phone, sent at 9.42pm on Friday as the Bataclan attack began, said: “Off we go, here we go again.”
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Police and justice officials have said the carefully planned series of attacks, the deadliest in France since the second world war, were carried out by a militant cell in Belgium in close contact with Isis in Syria, which was quick to claim responsibility for the killings as retaliation for French airstrikes in Syria and Iraq over the past year.
The whereabouts of Salah Abdeslam, a French national living in Belgium, whose brother Brahim blew himself up on Friday, and an unidentified ninth attacker sought since Tuesday night, could not be confirmed.
The Belgian prosecutor’s office said that both Abdeslam brothers had been interrogated earlier this year but had not been detained because they were not seen as a threat.
The existence of a ninth attacker was unknown to investigators until CCTV was found on Tuesday showing three men in a car – not two as previously believed – opening fire with assault rifles at two of the bars and restaurants caught up in the Paris attacks.
The Guardian
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