France Unsure if Raid Killed Top Suspect in Paris Attacks
Source: New York Times
ST.-DENIS, France — The prosecutor overseeing the investigation into the Paris terrorist attacks said Wednesday night that the authorities were trying to determine whether Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian militant suspected of being the ringleader, died in a police raid hours earlier on an apartment in the northern Paris suburb of St.-Denis.
At least two people died in the operation — a young woman who set off an explosive vest, and a person whose body was riddled with gunfire and shrapnel — and eight were arrested.
The prosecutor, François Molins, said that Mr. Abaaoud and another fugitive, Salah Abdeslam, were not among those arrested. But he said the authorities were not certain about the number of dead, or their identities, leaving open the possibility that either or both men might still be on the run. “As I speak, I am unable to give you a definitive number and identities of people killed,” he said.
Mr. Molins said the fighting was so intense — the police fired more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and a gun battle went on with hardly any interruption for nearly an hour, he said — that it could take some time for the authorities to determine what had happened inside the building, which was at risk of collapse.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/world/europe/paris-attacks.html
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