French prosecutor: It will take 'longer than expected' to determine who died in St. Denis raid

The damaged apartment building in St. Denis.
(Image credit: Pierre Suu/Getty Images)

In France, forensic teams are rushing to identify the bodies of at least two people who were killed during a raid early Wednesday in the Paris suburb of St. Denis.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, named as the ringleader of the attacks in Paris last Friday that killed 129 people, was the target of the operation. A woman believed to be his cousin, Hasna Aitboulahcen, blew herself up with a suicide belt several hours after the raid started, destroying the apartment and mangling the bodies, The Guardian reports.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.