The net tightens on terrorists in Paris

UPDATED: It has now been reported that the woman who blew herself up in the apartment in St-Denis was a cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks, and that a second person, said to be a terrorist, was shot and killed by police whilst a bystander was wounded.

The police have now lifted the security cordon around the apartment building although there was a report that for reasons that have not been revealed police stormed a church in the area and were later seen taking a man away, although it is not clear whether he had been in the church or not.

AS PART of a planned operation, police raided an apartment in the Paris suburb of St-Denis in the early morning of November 18 in the search for Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian jihadist who is suspected of being a main participant in Friday’s assaults. 

Four men and a woman whose identities are not yet known were arrested during the operation and another woman detonated a suicide vest with some minor injuries to police officers according to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office. 

Heavy gunfire was reported from the scene for several hours before the arrests were made and reports suggest that there is one further person still resisting the police in the same apartment block.

It is now believed that there was another suspect involved in last week’s massacres in Paris which would bring the total to nine people of which seven are dead and the other two, including Salah Abdeslam are ‘on the run’.