New York, Nov. 19 : The fate of the mastermind of last week’s Paris attacks remains unknown even after yesterday’s seven-hour raid conducted by French police commandos on an apartment in Saint Denis suburb of Paris ended in bloodshed, killing two suspects.
French investigators would not publicly identify one of the two people killed, including a woman who detonated a suicide vest, in the siege north of Paris early on Wednesday but The Washington Post, citing two senior European intelligence officials, reported that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of Friday’s terror attacks, was dead.
The man believed to be the architect of the massacre, 27-year-old Belgian ISIS militant Abaaoud, had mocked Western authorities for his ability to slip out of their sights, into and out of Syria, Fox News reported.
Investigators traced him by tracking phone conversations and piecing together surveillance images and witness accounts, according to Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins and French Interior Minister Bernard Cazenueve.
Police confirm a woman in a suicide vest blew herself up during the raid, severely damaging the building’s structural integrity. She is reported to have been Abaaoud’s cousin, in her twenties and from the northwestern suburb of Clichy La Garenne. (ANI)