A VIOLENT seven-hour police siege ended this morning at an apartment in Saint-Denis, a multicultural suburb just north of the French capital. In an operation that began at 4.20am Paris time, heavily armed special police raided a flat and arrested seven people there and nearby. A woman holed up in the apartment, wearing a suicide vest, blew herself up; another man was shot dead by a police sniper. While the operation took place, the police cordoned off the area; schools and public transport nearby were immediately shut down.
After the operation Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, visited the scene, but did not identify any of those arrested or the two dead. It was unclear whether they included Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian citizen, thought to be the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks on November 13th, which killed 129 people. He is aged 28, born to Moroccan parents and from the Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek, which was also home to two brothers involved in the latest Paris terrorist attack: Brahim Abdeslam, a suicide bomber, and Salah Abdeslam, who is also on the run from police.
Mr Abaaoud has been of particular...Continue reading
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