Explosions heard as French Police continue raid !!!

As the armed police are raiding a flat in the northern Paris suburb of Saint Denis in an operation believed linked to last Friday's attacks. Explosions and gunfire have been heard. Truckloads of soldiers are there. Two suspects are reported killed.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind, is said to be the focus of the operation.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) group has said it carried out the attacks in which 129 people died.

Reports on French TV say two suspects are thought to have died, including a woman with a suicide belt who has blown herself up. Some police officers have been wounded in the operation.

The operation began at around 04:30 local time (03:30 GMT). Deputy Mayor Stephane Peu urged local residents to stay indoors, saying "it is not a new attack but a police intervention".

Authorities have evacuated about 20 residents from a building where suspects linked to the Paris attacks are holed up in a standoff with police.A city official not authorised to be publicly named told The Associated Press the residents were brought to city hall for protection. City hall is about 200 m from the apartment building where the standoff is taking place on rue du Cornillon, in the heart of the historic, multicultural town just north of Paris. At least seven explosions have been heard at the scene of the police standoff. Associated Press reporters at the scene could hear what sounded like grenade blasts from the direction of the standoff in Saint-Denis.

Earlier, security sources said surveillance video showed a possible ninth assailant during the attacks. The video reportedly shows a third figure in the car carrying the group which attacked several bars and restaurants. It is not clear if this ninth attacker is one of two suspected accomplices detained in Belgium or is someone still on the run.

Meanwhile; Two Air France flights headed from the United States to Paris were diverted because of bomb threats, officials said. Both flights landed safely Tuesday night.

Flight 65, en route from Los Angeles to Paris, was diverted to Salt Lake City after a bomb threat was called in from the ground, a U.S. government official said. The official did not know whether anyone was arrested and was not aware of any unruly passengers on board.

Shortly afterward, Air France Flight 55 from Washington's Dulles International Airport to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris was diverted to an airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia -- also because of a bomb threat, a government source said.