Two dead, seven arrested in raid targeting Paris attack mastermind

Amid gunfire and explosions, police raided a suburban Paris apartment where the suspected mastermind of last week's attacks was believed to be holed up Nov. 18. The siege ended with two deaths and seven arrests but no clear information on his fate.

The dead were a woman who blew herself up with an explosive vest and a man hit by projectiles and grenades at the end of the raid, which began before dawn and continued for more than seven hours at the apartment building in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
     
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the raid was launched after information from tapped telephone conversations, surveillance and witness accounts indicated that the suspected attacks planner, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, might be in a safe house in the district.
     
Authorities could not immediately confirm whether Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant, was killed or arrested Nov. 18 morning.
     
Abaaoud was believed to be in Syria after a January police raid in Belgium, but bragged in ISIL propaganda of his ability to move back and forth between Europe and Syria undetected.
     
Speaking at the scene of Wednesday's raid, Molins said the operation began with a pre-dawn shootout and resulted in the capture of three people inside the apartment, the death of a woman who set off an explosive charge, and the death of "another terrorist who was found at the end of the operation who was hit by projectiles and grenades."
     
He said two other people were detained while trying to hide in the rubble, and two others were arrested, including the man who had provided the apartment and one of his acquaintances. Police at the scene were seen escorting away one man naked from the waist down...