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Paris Attack Mastermind killed in Police raid !!!

French investigators said Thursday that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the Paris terrorist attacks, died Wednesday in a major police operation in Saint-Denis, a suburb of the city. Another key suspect linked to Friday's atrocities by ISIS attackers in the French capital is still at large. And Belgian authorities are conducting fresh raids around Brussels.

Here are the most important developments:

French investigators tracked down the alleged ringleader of last week's Paris bloodshed after receiving a startling tipoff: The Islamic militant wasn't in Syria but in Europe, plotting yet another attack. A discarded cellphone found near a bloodied concert hall led them to his cousin, and then to a suburban Paris apartment where both died in a hail of bullets and explosions.

The search for Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has been extended to include the Netherlands, where Abdeslam had spent time in the past, a source close to the investigation told CNN. A spokesperson for the Dutch justice ministry told the news website NU.nl that the search had not expanded into the Netherlands.

Following the terror attacks in Paris, the FBI is closely monitoring dozens of people they think pose the highest threat of attempting to carry out a copycat attack in the United States, according to FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch told reporters. No relationship exists between the Paris attackers and anyone in the United States, they said.

Hasna Ait Boulahcen was the suicide-vest-clad woman killed during Wednesday's raid on an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, informed sources in France. Boulahcen, 26, was a relative of Abaaoud, the sources said. Friends of her family in their hometown of Aulnay-sous-Bois, on the northeastern outskirts of Paris, said she had lived there until recently. The Paris prosecutor's office earlier told news reporters that police were searching the home of the female suicide bomber's mother there.

Multiple raids were conducted in Belgium in connection with Hadfi Bilal, a suicide bomber in last week's Paris attacks, according to a statement from the Belgian federal prosecutor's office. Though authorities have confirmed that Abaaoud died as a result of the police raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, they don't yet know whether he blew himself up, the Paris prosecutor's office said. Papillary prints -- which include prints from fingers, palms and soles -- led officials to identify Abaaoud's remains, the French prosecutor's office announced in a statement.

A lawyer for Abaaoud's father told reporters that the father is "relieved" his son is dead. Attorney Nathalie Gallant said father Omar Abaaoud thinks his son was a "psychopath" and a "devil," and he felt guilty about his son's radicalization.

Abaaoud was linked to at least four foiled terror attacks the spring, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said, and had ties with several other known jihadists. Abaaoud used social media to try to recruit Spanish citizens, mostly women, to join ISIS in Syria, Spain's Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez told Spanish television station, Antena 3 TV.

A captain with Paris police's Research and Investigation Brigade, which responded to Friday's attack at the Bataclan Theatre, described in an NBC interview the "hell on Earth" his team encountered there. Upon taking position at the theater, he said several hundred people lay on the floor. "Tons of bloods everywhere. No sound. Nobody was screaming ... and a lot of light because it was like a concert." The people in the auditorium were lying motionless, he told NBC, " because they were afraid of the terrorist."

Video released by dailymail.com in London captures one of the Paris attacks at a cafe. A gunman sprays the front of the cafe and its outdoor bistro tables with bullets as glass shatters and patrons scramble to safety. The gunman approaches a woman near the front door and points an assault rifle at her. The weapon appears to jam, and the gunman walks off. The woman and another customer make a run for it.

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.

Gunfires in Paris suburbs !!!

A police raid is taking place in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, states French police. Police wouldn't comment on a report - officers have been shot in the operation.

Witnesses report heavy gunfire and that police are blocking roads in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis early Wednesday. Police officers have been shot and wounded during a raid seeking one of the suspects in the Paris terrorist attacks, a local news channel has reported.

The older brother of Salah Abdeslam, the man being hunted internationally for his alleged role in the Paris terror attacks last week, urged the suspect Tuesday to turn himself over to authorities. "I would tell him to surrender. That's the best solution," Mohamed Abdeslam told CNN's Erin Burnett in an interview. "But of course, if he has something to do with it, he must accept responsibility."

Authorities are combing through evidence as they try to track down the 26-year-old fugitive. And he may not be the only suspect tied to the attacks who's on the run. In their push to unravel the attack plot and the suspected network behind it, counterterrorism and intelligence officials say investigators have uncovered a clue that could be a big break: cell phones believed to belong to the attackers.

Earlier, security sources said surveillance video showed a possible ninth assailant during the attacks in which 129 people died.

"Screw them" says Charlie Hebdo's new cover !!!

The magazine cover is defiant, in-your-face and a notice to terrorists everywhere.

"They got the weapons -- Screw them, we got the Champagne!" says Charlie Hebdo's latest issue, which hits newsstands Wednesday.

A cartoon shows a man gleefully drinking Champagne as it pours out of holes in his body.

Staff and others at the satirical weekly publication were attacked in January by gunmen who were apparently outraged by Hebdo's portrayal of the Muslim prophet Muhammed in cartoons. Twelve people were killed, including several cartoonists beloved for their artistry.

In the wake of last week’s assaults on numerous locations in Paris for which the Islamic extremist group ISIS has taken credit, Charlie Hebdo is demonstrating that it has no plans to back down and stands fully for France and French culture.

The magazine began publishing in 1970 with the goal of satirizing religion, politics, and other topics. Even after the bloodbath at its Paris office in January, it kept publishing. The edition that came out in the days after the attack at the magazine featured a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed on the cover, holding a sign that says "Je suis Charlie," the phrase that caught fire on social media around the world. It means "I am Charlie," a sympathetic expression of sadness and support for those who were killed and against the terrorists who seek to enforce a brutal interpretation of Islam.

Belgian identified as the Mastermind of Paris attacks !!!

In extraordinary address to both houses of Parliament on Monday, President Francoise Hollande pledged a raft of measures that his government intends to put in place to meet the challenge posed by the Daish (Islamic State) both domestically and internationally. Calling the acts of terror – the second major attack since the killings this January of journalists working for the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo – as an “act of war”, a resolute President said that France will step up the frequency of air strikes against Daish bases in Syria, while beefing up the authority of the state apparatus even if that required amending France’s constitution.

A proposal to extend the state of emergency for another three months would be put for Parliament’s approval on Wednesday, Mr. Hollande said. In this time he will seek to introduce constitutional amendments that would give the government emergency-like powers without calling a state of emergency. Included in these new powers would be the right to take away citizenship rights from those citizens who present a serious risk to public order, he said.

The French President also promised to beef up the country’s police and armed forces. He intends to draft in 5000 addition police personnel, create 2500 extra posts in the country’s prison and judicial services, create 1000 more positions in the customs and border agency, and increase the technological capabilities of the defence sector.

A major breakthrough in the investigations into the terror plot that killed 129 people at three different venues in Paris on Friday night with the identification of the alleged mastermind of the attack, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian national who is currently in Syria. He was linked to the attack on a Paris-bound train in August and a plot to attack a Paris Church in April. Abaaoud was first named by the police as a wanted extremist after a gun battle in eastern Belgium in January during a raid on an IS cell.

French prosecutors had conducted 168 overnight raids in France, Mr. Hollande said, and have put 104 persons under house arrest. French prosecutors have so far named five of the seven suicide bombers, and are now on the lookout for 26-year old Salah Abdeslam who is said to be one of the three brothers linked to the attacks. The attackers have been identified as Syrian-born Ahmed Almohammad, French-born Samy Amimour, French national Omar Ismail Mostefai, who was identified by his severed finger found in the carnage at the Bataclan concert hall; Bilal Hadfi, who detonated his suicide vest near the Stade de France, and Brahim Abdeslam (brother of Salah Abdeslam), who killed himself outside a restaurant in Paris.

Samy Amimour, a 28-year-old Frenchman, was one of the suicide bombers at the Bataclan. He was allegedly charged in a probe in 2012 and placed under judicial supervision. But he dropped off the radar. Omar Mostefai is the other Bataclan assailant to have been identified.One of the two suicide attackers who struck the Stada de France stadium was carrying the passport of 26-year-old Ahmad Almohammad. The passport has not been verified, but the fingerprints matched those of someone who entered Europe through Greece in October. Brahim Abdeslam, brother of fugitive attacker Salah Abdeslam, carried out the suicide attack at Boulevard Voltaire

France came to a silent standstill for a moment at noon on Monday to honour and remember its citizens who died in the terrorist attacks across Paris on the night of November 13. President Francoise Holland led the homage from campus of the Sorbonne University in recognition of the overwhelmingly young victims of the assault. In the historic Hotel de Ville or City Hall, Mayor of Paris Ann Hidalgo and her administration’s workforce gathered in the Salle des Fetes, one of the building’s ceremonial halls, to mark the moment. Many sobbed quietly, comforted by their colleagues.

Offices and schools reopened today bringing a semblance of normalcy back to the city. Vigils for those who died continued at the sites of the bombings and at the Place de la Republique.

Syrian Passport found near corpse; IS claims responsibility of Paris Attacks !!!

The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the series of attacks targeting young concert-goers, soccer fans and Parisians enjoying a Friday night out at popular nightspots killed at least 128 people in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II. French President Francois Hollande condemned it as terrorism and pledged that France would stand firm against its foes. The worst carnage was at a concert hall hosting an American rock band, where scores of people were held hostage and attackers ended the standoff by detonating explosive belts.

The Islamic State released an undated video on Saturday threatening to attack France if bombings of its fighters continue. "To teach France, and all nations following its path, that they will remain at the top of Islamic State's list of targets, and that the smell of death won't leave their noses as long as they partake in their crusader campaign," said the group.

Earlier, on Saturday, French President Mr. Hollande said the attacks were committed by Islamic State, planned and organized from abroad with help from inside France. The attacks, described by the President as an act of war, were designed to show the country would remain in danger as long as it continued its current policies, Islamic State said in a statement.

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said as many as five attackers were killed, though it was not clear how many there were altogether and how many, if any, were still at large.

The attack unfolded with two suicide bombings and an explosion outside the national stadium during a soccer match between the French and German national teams. Within minutes, according to Paris police chief Michel Cadot, another group of attackers sprayed cafes outside the concert hall with machine gunfire, then stormed inside and opened fire on the panicked audience. As police closed in, they detonated explosive belts, killing themselves.

A Syrian passport has been found near the body of one of the suicide bombers who blew himself up on Friday near a Paris soccer stadium, sources close the investigation of the deadly attacks in Paris said.

In addition to the deaths at the concert hall, dozens were killed in an attack on a restaurant in the 10th arrondissement and several other establishments crowded on a Friday night, police said. Authorities said at least three people died when the bombs went off outside the soccer stadium.

Paris rocks under multiple attacks, similar to Mumbai 2008 ???

France was rocked by multiple, near simultaneous attacks on entertainment sites around Paris on early Saturday morning. The France government has declared national state emergency and has closed its borders.

The apparently coordinated gun and bomb attacks came as the country, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks ahead of a global climate conference that opens later this month.

At least two explosions were heard near the Stade de France national stadium where a France-Germany friendly soccer match was being played, attended by President Francois Hollande. The match continued until the end but panic broke out in the crowd as rumours of the attack spread, and spectators were held in the stadium and assembled spontaneously on the pitch

Social media can be a terrible and wonderful tool in the time of crisis. It’s a quick way for people to share information and to share their locations with loved ones. It is also, however, the quickest way to spread misinformation. Here, we have gathered a few confirmed facts from trusted news organizations and authorities about the horrific terrorism attacks around Paris.

Around 100 people were killed in an attack on the Bataclan concert venue in Paris on Friday night, police sources said. Three suspected jihadists were killed when police stormed the venue, the sources said.

French police say they believe all of the attackers involved shootings and bombings in Paris are dead. Micheal Cadot, the head of Paris police said that while all of the attackers are believed to have died, authorities are searching for possible accomplices in the attacks that left over 150 people dead.

Indian Embassy also tweeted stating: “ Here is our telephone 0140507070 open, we hope all Indians are safe. Our prayers with families affected, solidarity with France: Govt”

A lot of similarities have been pointed out between the Paris attacks and the Mumbai attacks of 2008.

The rock band U2 has postponed its Saturday night concert in Paris in the light of the deadly attacks across the city on Friday night. HBO had planned to televise the band's performance. Instead, U2 says in a statement that it is resolved to go ahead with the concert ``at an appropriate time.''

The France government wont open the borders till the situation is under control. More than 1500 military personals have been deployed in the whole city and Paris residents have been asked to remain indoors.