Two die in police raid targeting suspected Paris attack mastermind

• Woman suicide bomber blows herself up and another suspect dies 
• Suspects had planned attack on Paris business district

Members of French special police forces of the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) and forensic experts are seen near a raid zone in Saint-Denis, near Paris, France, 18Novemberduring an operation to catch fugitives from Friday night’s deadly attacks in the French capital – Reuters

Reuters: A woman suicide bomber blew herself up and another militant died on Wednesday when police raided an apartment in the Paris suburb of St. Denis seeking suspects in last week’s attacks in the French capital.

Three sources told Reuters the raid stopped a jihadist cell that had been planning an attack on Paris’s business district, La Defense, after coordinated bombings and shootings killed 129 across the city.

Officials said police had been hunting Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamist militant accused of masterminding the Nov. 13 carnage, but more than nine hours after the launch of the pre-dawn raid it was still unclear if they had found him.

Seven people were arrested in the operation, which started with a barrage of gunfire, including three people who were pulled from the apartment, officials said.

“It is impossible to tell you who was arrested. We are in the process of verifying that. Everything will be done to determine who is who,” Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said at the end of the operation.

Molins said the assault was ordered after phone taps and surveillance operations led police to believe that Abaaoud might have been in St. Denis, near to the soccer stadium which was site of one of the attacks that hit Paris last week.

Investigators believe the attacks -- the worst atrocity in France since World War Two -- was set in motion from Syria, with Islamist cells in neighbouring Belgium organising the mayhem.

Local residents spoke of their fear and panic as the shooting started in St. Denis just before 4.30 a.m. (0330 GMT). “We could see bullets flying and laser beams out of the window. There were explosions. You could feel the whole building shake,” said Sabrine, a downstairs neighbour from the apartment that was raided. She told Europe 1 radio that she heard the people above her talking to each other, running around and reloading their guns.

Another local, Sanoko Abdulai, said that as the operation gathered pace, a young woman detonated an explosion.

“She had a bomb, that’s for sure. The police didn’t kill her, she blew herself up...,” he told Reuters, without giving details. Three police officers and a passerby were injured in the assault. A police dog was also killed.

Until Wednesday morning, officials had said Abaaoud was in Syria. He grew up in Brussels, but media said he moved to Syria in 2014 to fight with Islamic State. Since then he has travelled back to Europe at least once and was involved in a series of planned attacks in Belgium foiled by the police last January.

Two Air France flights from US diverted by bomb threats

Two Air France flights bound for Paris from the United States were diverted for several hours on Tuesday following anonymous bomb threats, and more than 700 passengers and crew were safely taken off the planes, officials said.

Flight 65, an Airbus A-380 that departed from Los Angeles, landed safely in Salt Lake City, where passengers and crew were escorted into the terminal, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said. The Salt Lake Tribune, citing an airport official, said it was carrying 497 passengers and crew.

The FBI said in a statement that no evidence was found aboard the plane "which would lend credibility to the threats" against the flight.