FRANCE: Paris Attacks 'ringleader' Killed In Police Raid

The Islamic State jihadist suspected of orchestrating the Paris attacks was killed in a major police raid in the French capital, prosecutors confirmed Thursday, raising troubling questions about a breakdown in intelligence and European border security.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan origin linked to a series of extremist plots in Europe over the past two years, died in Wednesday's assault by police on an apartment in northern Paris.

The 28-year-old was thought to have been in Syria — where he had boasted of planning attacks on the West — and his presence in France will renew debate about Europe's border controls and monitoring of fighters returning from the war-torn country.

Confirmation that such a high-profile figure from the Islamic State (IS) group had slipped undetected into France prompted a sharp response from Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who demanded Europe step up its response to the terror threat.

He said Paris had received "no information" from other European countries about his arrival on the continent.

"It is urgent that Europe wakes up, organises itself and defends itself against the terrorist threat," Cazeneuve said.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said some of the attackers had taken advantage of Europe's migrant crisis to "slip in" unnoticed and warned the cherished passport-free Schengen zone would be in danger if the bloc did not improve border controls.

Abaaoud was the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by Belgium -- where a court had in July sentenced him in absentia to 20 years in prison for recruiting jihadists for Syria.

But it was only three days after the Paris bloodbath that "intelligence services of a country outside Europe indicated they had knowledge of his presence in Greece", Cazeneuve said, without specifying which country.

Abaaoud was also checked by police at Cologne-Bonn airport on his way to Istanbul in early 2014, German officials said, but was allowed to go as they had no indication he should be stopped.

- Radical cousin -EU interior and justice ministers are to meet in Brussels on Friday where they will tighten checks on all travellers at the external borders of the 26-nation Schengen zone as an emergency measure.

At least 129 people were killed in the shootings and suicide bombings that targeted a concert hall, bars and restaurants and the Stade de France national stadium last Friday.

It was the second major attack in Paris in less than a year. In January, jihadist gunmen killed 17 people at Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, on the streets and in a Jewish supermarket.

Abaaoud was involved in four out of six attack plots foiled in France this year, Cazeneuve said. Police are also probing links to a thwarted assault on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris in August.

As the probe widened across Europe, Belgian police arrested nine people in Brussels, seven in raids linked to a suicide bomber who took part in the Paris attacks last Friday.

Italy was also hunting five suspects after an FBI tip-off about possible jihadist attacks on landmark sites.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said fingerprint analysis was used to identify Abaaoud's body, found riddled with bullets in the rubble of the shattered building in Saint-Denis following a seven-hour police siege.

Another body found after the ferocious shootout is thought to be that of Abaaoud's 26-year-old cousin Hasna Ait Boulahcen, who detonated an explosives vest.

Speaking to AFP before police raided a house northeast of Paris where Boulahcen had lived with her mother and siblings, her brother said she had become radicalised only around six months ago.

"She was unstable, she created her own bubble. She wasn't looking to study religion, I have never even seen her open a Koran," he told AFP.

"It's brainwashing," added her 58-year-old mother, with whom she had been living in the gritty Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois until a few weeks ago.

'IT'S CARNAGE'

Eight arrests were made in Wednesday's massive raid in Saint Denis, but another key suspect, Salah Abdeslam, remains unaccounted for.

Abdeslam is thought to be one of the only surviving members of the group of assailants behind the Paris attacks. His suicide-bomber brother Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up at a cafe without killing anyone.

Chilling CCTV footage has emerged in which a gunman can be seen pointing his weapon at a woman crouching under a table outside the café — but it jams, allowing her to flee.

A video has also emerged from the bloody scene outside La Bonne Biere restaurant just seconds after it came under fire, with bodies seen lying on the ground as people rushed to help the victims. "It's carnage", a voice can be heard saying off-camera.

French lawmakers on Thursday voted to extend an extraordinary package of security measures for three months as Valls warned of "the risk from chemical or biological weapons".

The measures include allowing police to carry weapons when they are off duty and use them in the event of an attack. French MPs also voted to let the government block websites and social media accounts promoting or inciting terrorist acts.

French President Francois Hollande also ordered French air strikes against IS jihadists be stepped up in Iraq as well as Syria.

Paris Attacks Kill More Than 100, Police Say; Border Controls Tightened

France has declared a national state of emergency and tightened borders after at least 120 people were killed in a night of gun and bomb attacks in Paris.

Eighty people were reported killed after gunmen burst into the Bataclan concert hall and took hostages before security forces stormed the hall.

People were shot dead at restaurants and bars at five other sites in Paris. At least 180 people were injured.

These are the deadliest attacks in Europe since the 2004 Madrid bombings.

French President Francois Hollande, visibly shaken, called Friday night's almost simultaneous attacks "a horror" and vowed to wage a "merciless" fight against terrorism.

Paris saw three days of attacks in early January, when Islamist gunmen murdered 18 people after attacking satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a Jewish supermarket and a policewoman on patrol.

The attack on the 1,500-seat Bataclan hall was by far the deadliest of Friday night's attacks. Gunmen opened fire on concert-goers watching US rock group Eagles of Death Metal. The event had been sold out.

"At first we thought it was part of the show but we quickly understood," Pierre Janaszak, a radio presenter, said

Speaking outside the Bataclan concert hall President Hollande said the attacks were "an abomination and a barbaric act"

"They didn't stop firing. There was blood everywhere, corpses everywhere. We heard screaming. Everyone was trying to flee."

He said the gunmen took 20 hostages, and he heard one of them tell their captives: "It's the fault of Hollande, it's the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria".

Within an hour, security forces had stormed the concert hall and all four attackers there were dead. Three had blown themselves up and a fourth was shot dead by police.

Attack sites:

La Belle Equipe, 92 rue de Charonne, 11th district - 19 dead in gun attacks

Le Carillon bar and Le Petit Cambodge restaurant at rue Alibert, 10th district - 12-14 dead in gun attacks

La Casa Nostra restaurant, 92 rue de la Fontaine au Roi, 11th district - 5 dead in gun attacks

Stade de France, St Denis, just north of Paris - explosions heard outside venue, three attackers dead

Bataclan concert venue, 50 boulevard Voltaire, 11th district - stormed by several gunmen, 80 dead

The attacks took place at six sites across Paris, mainly in the centre of the city

Meanwhile, not far from the Place de la Republique and the Place de la Bastille, three busy restaurants and a bar were targeted by gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs.

Around 40 people were killed as customers were singled out at venues including a pizza restaurant and a Cambodian restaurant, Le Petit Cambodge.

"We heard the sound of guns, 30-second bursts. It was endless. We thought it was fireworks," Pierre Montfort, a resident living close to Le Petit Cambodge said.

The other target was the Stade de France, on the northern fringe of Paris, where President Hollande and 80,000 other spectators were watching a friendly international between France and Germany, with a TV audience of millions more.

The president was whisked to safety after the first of at least two explosions just outside the venue to convene an emergency cabinet meeting. Three attackers were reportedly killed there.

As the extent of the bloodshed became clear, Mr Hollande went on national TV to announce a state of emergency for the first time in France since 2005. The decree enables the authorities to close public places and impose curfews and restrictions on the movement of traffic and people.

Eyewitness Ben Grant: "There were a lot of dead people, it was horrific"

Paris residents have been asked to stay indoors and about 1,500 military personnel are being deployed across the city.

All schools, museums, libraries, gyms, swimming pools and markets will be shut on Saturday as well as Disneyland Paris. All sporting fixtures in the affected area of Paris have also been cancelled.

Police believe all of the gunmen are dead - seven killed themselves with explosives vests and one was shot dead by the security forces - but it is unclear if any accomplices are still on the run.

US President Barack Obama spoke of "an outrageous attempt to terrorise innocent civilians".

UK PM David Cameron said he was shocked and pledged to do "whatever we can to help".

The Vatican called it "an attack on peace for all humanity" and said "a decisive, supportive response" was needed "on the part of all of us as we counter the spread of homicidal hatred in all its forms".

Spectators flooded the pitch of the Stade de France after the France v Germany football match as news of the attacks spread.

It's just 10 months since Paris was the scene of multiple terrorist attacks, first the massacre of staff at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and then a hostage-taking at a Jewish supermarket.

What happened in Paris on Friday night is exactly what Europe's security services have long feared, and tried to foil. Simultaneous, rolling attacks, with automatic weapons and suicide bombers in the heart of a major European city, targeting multiple, crowded public locations.

The tactics have been used before, in Mumbai and elsewhere. But how they've come to Europe is one of many questions that will have to be answered.

Were the attackers French citizens? If so, how they were radicalised, armed and organised - was it in France, in Syria, and by whom? Why weren't they detected? Is France, after two major attacks this year, uniquely vulnerable or does the carnage in Paris mean all of Europe faces new threats to our public places and events? And if a Syrian link is proven, will France recoil from that conflict or will it redouble its commitment to the fight against radical groups there?