French anti-terrorism raid north of Paris ends with at least 2 dead, 7 arrests

France&#039;s big police raid in St. Denis is over, the French government says — (Image credit: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images)

After seven hours, a large police raid on an apartment building in St. Denis, a suburb north of Paris, has ended, French government spokesman Stephane La Foll said. "The operation is over," he told reporters after a cabinet meeting in the presidential palace. French police say that at least two people died in the raid, including one woman who blew herself up with a suicide vest, and seven people were arrested, including three people from the apartment and, apparently, the apartment's owner, who said he was innocently letting the suspects stay there as a favor. A 7-year-old police dog, Diesel, was also killed during the raid, France's National Police said, and several officers were wounded. Authorities haven't disclosed the identities of any of the suspects, dead or alive.

French media has also reported that one bystander was killed, and one suspect was still holed upon the apartment building, but the street outside the apartment in St. Denis has been quiet for a while — after lots of gunfire and at least seven explosions earlier — and detectives and crime scene technicians are already replacing the SWAT teams and military backup. Police sources told Frances BFMTV that they had started monitoring a woman "several days ago," suspicious that she may be sheltering Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of last Friday's attacks and the main target of Wednesday morning's raid. It's not clear if the dead woman is the woman they had under surveillance, or what happened to Abaaoud, who was previously thought to be in Syria.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.