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Fate of Paris attacks ‘mastermind’ unknown after massive raid

The assessment from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, in coordination with the FBI, specifically refers to Abaaoud as a ringleader of Belgian plotters and warned Europe was more at risk of attack than the US.

A plot uncovered by Belgian authorities in January “may indicate that the (IS) group has developed the capability to launch more complex operations in the West,” it said.

Abaaoud is a 28-year-old Islamic State fighter who was previously thought to be in Syria after fleeing raids in his native Belgium earlier this year.

Residents of the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis said they had been caught in a terrifying exchange of fire at dawn on Wednesday as police closed in on the apartment where he was thought to be hiding.

Hayat, 26, who only gave one name, had been leaving a friend’s apartment where she had spent the night when the shots erupted.

“I heard gunfire,” she said. “I could have been hit by a bullet. I never thought terrorists could have hidden here.”

A man arrested during the assault told AFP he had leant his apartment to two people from Belgium.

“A friend asked me to put up two of his friends for a few days,” Jawad Bendaoud said, before he was arrested.

– Jewish teacher stabbed –

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Seven jihadists were killed or blew themselves up in Friday’s attacks and several European countries have launched an international operation to hunt down any other plotters.

In Belgium, where some of the attackers lived, it emerged prosecutors had questioned the two Abdeslam brothers before the attacks “but they had shown no signs of being a potential threat”.

Hundreds of Belgians joined a candlelight vigil in solidarity with the victims of the Paris attacks on Wednesday in Molenbeek, the troubled Brussels neighbourhood where the brothers lived.

In Sweden, police Wednesday were hunting for a man suspected of “planning a terrorist act”, who media reported was an Iraqi who had fought in Syria.

IS, meanwhile, released a new video threatening New York, and specifically Times Square, although police said there was no “current and specific” threat.

The attacks were unprecedented in France, which was shaken to its core for the second time in a year after 17 people were shot dead by jihadists at Charlie Hebdo magazine, on the streets and in a Jewish supermarket in January.

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