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Police try to verify location of 'mastermind'

AFP
AFP - [email protected]
Police try to verify location of 'mastermind'
Photo: Screengrab - BFMTV

The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was the target of Wednesday's dawn raid by police - but it remains unknown if he was among those killed or arrested.

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A woman blew herself up, one suspected jihadist was killed, and authorities arrested seven people in Wednesday's operation -- a seven-hour stand-off between security forces and a group of people holed up in an apartment.

Black-clad elite police were seen hauling away a naked suspect in the streets near where three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the football stadium at the start of Friday's attacks.
   
After the raid, white-suited forensic experts swarmed the building as police tried to verify if Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of Friday's attacks in Paris that killed 129 people, had been in the apartment.
   
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said a probe into the attacks allowed police "to obtain telephonic surveillance and witness testimony which led us to believe that Abaaoud was likely to be in an... apartment in Saint-Denis".
   
However, Molins added it was too early to say if he was among those arrested or killed.
   
Abaaoud, 28, is an Isis fighter who was previously thought to be in Syria after fleeing raids in his native Belgium earlier this year.
 
The man, who is of Moroccan origin, has been linked to a series of Islamic extremist plots and recruitment efforts in Europe over the past two years. Read what we know about Abaaoud, one of the most wanted men in Europe. 
 

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