A PASSERBY has reportedly been killed in the anti-terror operation north of Paris.
Police officers and armed military officers have surrounded an apartment in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis where the mastermind of the deadly Paris attacks is believed to be holed up.
At least two terror suspects have also reportedly been killed and three others have been arrested in the anti-terror operation north of Paris.
According to French media reports, a woman with a suicide belt was one of the terrorists that was killed during the raid.
The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and escaped terrorist Salah Abdeslam are believed to be the targets of the dawn raid and the subsequent shootout in the north of the city.
Two police officers have also reportedly been injured in the raids.
Witnesses at the scene have reported the arrival of about 100 heavily-armed French military reinforcements.
Large explosions can now be heard thundering through Saint Denis, as well as gunfire.
Army soldiers are fanning out along the streets and a van has just arrived carrying ammunition boxes.
It was not clear if the 28-year-old member of the Islamic State jihadist group was one of two to four people thought to be inside the apartment in Saint Denis that police swooped on.
Several police officers have also reportedly been wounded after gunfight broke out during the raid.
French authorities are searching for at least two people involved in last Friday’s attacks, which killed at least 129 people and seven terrorists.
A police source contacted by Le Monde has said two men targeted by the attack were killed and a third man could have also been killed, but this is yet to be confirmed.
Police sources said unidentified men were still holed up in an apartment in the suburb of Saint-Denis, where the Stade de France is located.
26-year-old independent journalist Baptiste Marie, who lives near the scene of the standoff, said the incident started with a number of explosions.
“(Then) there was an hour of gunfire,” Marie said.
Marie said the officers seemed nervous. “You could see it in their eyes,” Marie said.
Resident Amin Guizani said the explosions were grenades and Kalashnikov rifles.
News Corp Australia’s Charles Miranda, who is en route to St Denis, says local radio is reporting up to five terrorists are involved in the shootout, including Saleh Abdeslam — one of the seven involved in the weekend attacks.
Firemen told AFP they joined the operation against “an armed group holed up in an apartment” at 04:31am (0331 GMT), without giving any further details.
The area was closed down and intermittent gunfire could still be heard an hour after it started.
Another source said a special armed response unit took part in the raid, which comes as Europe was on high alert after footage from the scene of one of Friday’s attacks revealed a ninth suspect may have taken part.
It was not clear if this ninth man was one of two suspected accomplices detained in Belgium or was on the run, potentially with 26-year-old fugitive Frenchman Salah Abdeslam who carried out one of the attacks at Bonne Biere cafe along with his suicide-bomber brother Brahim.
A police official says there have been exchanges of gunfire and special SWAT teams are on the scene at the large police operation. The official was not authorised to be publicly named according to police policy.
Police have blocked off the area around Place Jean Jaures in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris.
Ambulances can be seen and sirens heard in French television footage from the scene.
The Saint-Denis police station has advised residents to stay at home, Le Parisienreports.
Deputy Mayor Stephane Peu told i-Tele television that there have been many gun shots and detonations in the operation that began on rue de la Republique in the centre of Saint Denis.
He urged residents to stay home, saying “it is not a new attack but a police intervention.”
Two officials say police operation now under way is connected to the investigation into Friday’s attacks
Evidence uncovered as ninth attacker confirmed
A mobile phone used by one of the attackers in the Paris shooting and bombing has been recovered.
The phone had a map of the music venue that was attacked by terrorists and a text message saying words to the effect of “let’s go”.
Confirming reports on French web site Mediapart and US television channel CNN, a source said the phone was found in a bin near the Bataclan concert hall where the bloodiest of the shootings took place on Friday.
These revelations come after investigators obtained a video confirming there was a ninth attacker in Paris among the men who opened fire on bars and restaurants, sources close to the inquiry told AFP.
Previously officials had not specified how many people were involved in the attack on the sidewalk bar on La Fontaine au Roi street.
Surveillance video of the shooting shows two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons calmly firing on the bar, then returning slowly toward a waiting car, whose driver was manoeuvring behind them.
Three French officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment on the investigation, confirmed that an analysis of the series of attacks on Friday indicated that one additional person directly involved in the assault remains unaccounted for.
The ninth attacker could be run along with 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, unless the man in the video is one of two suspected accomplices being held in Belgium.
French and Belgian police have launched a manhunt for Abdeslam in connection with Friday’s carnage in Paris. Abdeslam is believed to have fled after gunning down people at bars and cafes in Paris’ 10th and 11th arrondissements alongside his brother Brahim Abdeslam, who later blew himself up outside a bar on Boulevard Voltaire, seriously wounding one person.
Stadium evacuated
A friendly soccer match in Germany, hailed as a “symbol of freedom” after the Paris attacks, was cancelled just 90 minutes before kick-off due to a bomb threat.
German newspaper Kreiszeitung reported the game was abandoned when police found a truck bomb disguised as an ambulance outside Hanover’s 49,000-capacity HDI Arena on Tuesday.
Police chief Volker Kluwe told public broadcaster NDR the “key warning reached us about 15 minutes before the gates opened,” with Germany’s national soccer squad taken to “a safe place” by police.
However a German security official has denied reports that explosives were found outside the stadium. Boris Pistorius, the interior minister for Lower-Saxony state, also told reporters that there had also been no arrests in the case.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere declined to answer questions about the exact nature of the threat and the source of the information during a news conference after the Germany-Netherlands match was cancelled.
De Maiziere asked for “trust,” saying “some of these answers would unsettle the population, some of these answers would make our actions in future harder and (...) some of these answers might lead the source of the information not to provide tips to us anymore.”
Thousands of fans were evacuated from the stadium, where the German national side had been due to play the Netherlands. German government officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, were expected to attend.
In a separate incident across town, the TUI-Arena was also reported to have been evacuated ahead of a performance by the Söhne Mannheims musical group, German newspaper Bild reported. Police did not say what the threat was.
Local police said on Facebook that a suspicious package had also been found at the city’s train station. Part of the station has been closed and an investigation is under way.
The German team was playing France last Friday when players and fans were shaken by the blasts of jihadist suicide bombers outside the venue that echoed through the Stade de France.
Head coach Joachim Loew had called the planned match “a clear message and symbol of freedom and a demonstration of compassion, as well as sorrow, for our French friends — not only in France, but throughout the world.”
Before the match, players were practising the French anthem “La Marseillaise,” which they had been set to sing in a sign of solidarity with the shaken nation.
The victims of the Paris attacks — which claimed at least 132 lives with more than 350 injured — were set to be honoured by candlelight in what has been described as “a friendly in the true sense of the word.”
The German Football Association had at the weekend already come close to calling off the match, while Belgium have cancelled their friendly against Spain on Tuesday.
We want to take this opportunity to use light as a sign of sympathy to the world,” the chairman of the Friends of Hanover, Roger Cericius, had told the Hannoversche Allgemeine newspaper.
Germany are still coming to terms with what they experienced last Friday during their international against France.
After the blasts, the Germans spent the night in the Stade de France changing room, as it was still considered too dangerous to cross Paris, before flying home early the next morning.
“There was a lot of fear and anxiety in the dressing room that night. We were afraid,” said Loew, who revealed the players had asked to leave as soon as the match was over.
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