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.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Today's political cartoons - May 5, 2024Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - annoying noises, gag orders, and more
-
5 highly educational cartoons about student protestsCartoons Artists take on apolitical camping, the National Guard, and more
-
French schools and the scourge of teenage violenceTalking Point Gabriel Attal announces 'bold' intervention to tackle rise in violent incidents
-
Trump criminal trial starts with rulings, reminderSpeed Read The first day of his historic trial over hush money payments was mostly focused on jury selection
-
Parents of school shooter sentenced to 10-15 yearsSpeed Read Jennifer and James Crumbley are the first parents to be convicted in a US mass shooting
-
Unlicensed dealers and black market gunsSpeed Read 68,000 illegally trafficked guns were sold in a five year period, said ATF
-
Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for fraudSpeed Read Former "crypto king" Sam Bankman-Fried will report to federal prison
-
Feds raid Diddy homes in alleged sex trafficking caseSpeed Read Homeland Security raided the properties of hip hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs
-
'Goon Squad' cops sentenced for torturing 2 Black menSpeed Read The former Mississippi law enforcement officers pleaded guilty last year
-
Michigan shooter's dad guilty of manslaughterspeed read James Crumbley failed to prevent his son from killing four students at Oxford High School in 2021
-
Shooting at Chiefs victory rally kills 1, injures 21Speed Read Gunfire broke out at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory parade in Missouri
