Architect of Paris attacks killed in raid

The siege ended with two deaths and seven arrests but no clear information on the fugitive's fate.

Abaaoud, the 28-year-old Islamic State militant from Brussels of Moroccan origin, was believed to be inside the apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis with five other heavily armed people when the raids started, according to a French police official.

Police said one man was also killed and seven people arrested in the standoff. Police at the scene were seen escorting away one man who was naked from the waist down, and another wrapped in a gold emergency blanket.

Around 15 people, including children, were evacuated out of the targeted building, he said.

Three people in the Saint-Denis building itself, including one with a bullet wound in the arm, are among the eight detained, according to Molins.

Authorities are trying to determine whom the message was sent to, he said.

- France's National Assembly approved President Hollande's request to extend the state of emergency in the country by three months. We are fighting that war. "And simply for what we are".

And those in Saint-Denis were "about to move on a few kind of operation" again, police sources told CNN, adding that the Wednesday raid happened "just in time".

Whoever those inside the apartment were, they may have been preparing to unleash more terror on the streets of Paris.

"Not a single piece of intelligence from a European country that he might have transited through before arriving in France was communicated to us suggesting that he might be in Europe and was heading towards France", the French interior minister, Mr Bernard Cazeneuve, said yesterday at a news conference.

A message on the phone, according to Molins, said, "Here we go, it's starting". "My wife panicked and was scared and told me not to leave, but I ignored her. Life goes on". Two more suspects may be on the run, French media reported. "There was an hour of gunfire".

"It was continuous. It didn't stop", he said. "It lasted from 4:20 until 5:30". It was a good hour. I couldn't say how many shots were fired, but it was probably 500. French kings were crowned and buried through the centuries in its famed basilica, a majestic Gothic church that towers over the area.

Seven assailants died in that violence. This month alone, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, the downing of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt and a pair of suicide bombings in Beirut. That would bring the number of attackers to at least nine.

Neither Abaaoud nor suspect Salah Abdeslam, for whom authorities have been hunting since the attacks, were among those detained in the operation, Molins said.

Telephone communications on a wiretap by French and Belgian security agencies indicated a woman at the residence was Abaaoud's cousin, a Belgian counterterrorism official told CNN.

The Post did not provide details, including the intelligence officials' nationalities, and Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

It added that the plot "may indicate that the group has developed the capability to launch more complex operations in the West", as opposed to so-called "lone wolf" attacks or assaults by smaller or less sophisticated groups. "This is what was attacked on the night of November 13th", he said.

The brief clip shows two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons calmly firing on the bar then returning toward a waiting vehicle, whose driver was maneuvering behind them. One of his brothers, Brahim, blew himself up in Paris. The AP reports that the military said "it has destroyed 35 Islamic State targets in Syria since last week's attacks on Paris".

He said: "Terrorism hit France, not because of what it is doing in Iraq and Syria... but for what it is".

France - and the rest of Europe - remain on edge four days after the attacks.