18/11/2015 World News Today

The authorities say they have prevented a major new attack

A woman blew herself up and the following today's raid linked to

A woman blew herself up and the suspect was shot dead after armed

officers stormed the department suspect was shot dead after armed

dawn raid in the suburb of Saint Eight people were arrested. French

officials confirmed the suspected mastermind and accomplice were not

among those detained. The identity of the people who were arrested are

not absolutely certain. But Abaaoud and Abdeslam are not part of the

people who have been arrested. More than 1000 people have taken part in

a district of Brussels where one of the key suspects had lived.

Including the brother and cousin of Sala Abdeslam, one of the wanted men

who stepped out onto the balcony of their home to mourn the victims.

Hello and welcome to Paris. After a day of drama and more bloodshed. A

raid by police this morning just before dawn left to suspected

terrorists dead and eight people under arrest. It's not clear though,

if France's most wanted man, the ringleader who was believed to have

organised last Friday's atrocities, was among the dead. He certainly

wasn't detained. Let's bring you the latest. The French authorities are

saying they believe today's raid may have thwarted another major attack,

this time in Paris's financial district. This morning's predawn

raid took place about 12 kilometres north of where I am standing, in the

suburb of Saint Denis, which is very close to the stat to France, which

was targeted by the militants on Friday, killed dozens of people. The

area has a high proportion of people from ethnic minorities. Heavily

armed police were deployed, the one of the main shopping streets. The

actual apartment which was the target of their operation was on a

side street. In a moment we will hear from the Paris prosecutor but

before we listen to him, it must be pointed out that France's most

wanted man, Abaaoud, the man they believed had been in Syria, it's not

clear if he is among the two dead suspected terrorists, killed in this

morning's raid. The female suspected terrorist charged police with a

suicide vest before blowing herself up, it's reported. First, this

report by Lucy Williamson. In the darkened streets

of this northern suburb, France is The target,

the country's most wanted man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, alleged

mastermind of Friday's attacks. If ever a raid was personal,

this was it. Residents were pulled from buildings

in their nightclothes. The scale and threat of this

operation quickly becoming clear. I tried to protect myself,

holding my baby tight. They were explosions,

we felt the building shake, there were guys upstairs screaming,

"shoot, shoot". By first light as special forces

carried out their assault, A woman inside the building had

detonated her suicide vest. I heard gunfire, it went crazy,

gunshots, explosions, here, there, It went on for ages,

people were running everywhere. I didn't see anything terrible but I

heard gunshots, snipers were firing, taking careful aim. There was a huge

wave of bullets. By eight o'clock,

with two suspects dead in the target Dozens of soldiers, brought

in to help secure the streets. This dawn raid has turned

into a major operation. Truckloads of soldiers have been

brought in after hours It's a sign

of just how dangerous the hunt is Without warning, riot police

break through their cordon, fanning It's nothing, it's over quickly,

but the jitteriness remains. Out of sight in an empty courtyard,

the rewards of this assault are In all, seven people were arrested

this morning, including this man. Handcuffed, under heavy guard,

his face uncovered. Police have been hunting one

of Friday's attackers. In his wake,

clutching their children, terrified, Behind them at the building

entrance, forces begin to pile in. Above them,

residents slowly absorbed the news. The attacks here last week targeted

everyone, but just as hard for France to stomach is that anyone

can be an attacker too. In the past hour, the executed has

said that the raid had eliminated the team of suspected jihad ease

behind Friday's attack and also said they had been planning new attacks

here in the capital. -- the team of suspected jihad thes. The operation

was successful in that three men were arrested, one of them was

injured, the police arrested them and identification is being done at

the moment. I cannot have you any element regarding these people at

the moment. There was also an explosion which suggested there was

a kamikaze operation, a body full of impact was found in the rubble of

the building. At this stage it's not possible to identify this person who

did the state of the body. We have been given to an explosion following

the action of a woman who detonated an explosive belt, this will have to

be checked still considering the state of the bodies and the shreds

of bodies, so this demands serious investigation and it's not easy.

Would we have seen in the building makes it extremely difficult. I am

not able to give you precise information about the identity of

these people who have died, except there are at least two people dead,

but it will take longer than expected because the building may

collapse, so we have the support some of the ball to allow the

enquiry team to work in safety. -- some of the wall. We found two men,

one of them in the flat, one of them injured, they were immediately

arrested. Other operations continue in another flat in Saint Denis, at

the home of a man who was in touch with the commando and may have given

accommodation. This flat was empty but I -- I suspect was arrested in

the street near the flat where the terrorists have found refuge

together with a woman. The search in the flat has not brought any weapon

or explosive forward so far. Another was also injured in the road has

also been arrested. In total, eight people have been arrested, seven men

and one woman are currently being interrogated. The identity of the

four who were arrested are not certain, but Abaaoud and Abdeslam

are not part of the people who have been arrested. The investigation

will continue to identify those who were killed, those who are arrested

and all those who make have been implicated in one way or another in

this attack, either in France or in Syria.

It may last for days, people have been coming here to lay flowers and

candles -- in the last four base. People have said yes, they hoped

they could feel more relieved that they were worried about what might

come in the future, especially as they now understood and believed

President Hollande that this country was now at war with Isla make state,

or Daesh, as he described it. -- Islamic State. Let's speak to a

Paris journalist who knows the Saint Denis area well and the other

ghettos, as some have described them, where a lot of North African

immigrants live. What is your immediate response to today, it laid

Paris any safer if Abaaoud has been killed? Many questions need to be

answered, we don't have the identities of the terrorists yet, it

maybe they are part of a larger network in the rest of France, and

it's worrying that this guy was supposed to be in Syria and was

basically hiding in plain sight under the nose of the Paris police

forces. This raises a lot of questions. The fact he may be

killed, maybe it makes the city say just for now but it doesn't mean the

terrorist threat is gone. There are many other suburbs like Saint Denis.

Where does the radicalisation take place? There are two things, you

have these huge suburbs, not only in Paris but in other large cities of

the country, there are about 20 million people living in them, these

are not serenade bad neighbourhoods but there are some very bad

neighbourhoods, much worse than you would encounter in the UK. 'S is not

even particularly bad, it's an old city, it's well-connected to the

city -- Saint Denis is not even particularly bad. But there are

places with no post office, no police, they feel disconnected with

the country, and these areas are prone to radicalisation because

sometimes the mosques or the churches, in this case the mosque,

they are the only one who provide a social network. What about the

prison system? That's also an important problem lot of these

radicalised young people come in as petty thieves or drug dealers,

stealing a car, they get out of the prison as radical potential

terrorists because the situation in these prisons are horrible, most of

them date from the 19th century, France has been convicted many times

the European Court of Human Rights for their inhumane conditions so

this is a perfect situation the newly young people and radicalise

them and that's the real problem. We have seen all the terrorists

involved and also with Charlie Hebdo, they all went to prison and

came out as radicalised terrorists. How much will the next and it's a

double emergency help the authorities and what is the

counter-productive side? I am critical of this because it

basically says we're going to put democracy on hold for three months,

who says it will not be extended again and again? It's worrying

because the French president and the French government already have all

the stuff they need to attack terrorists, for instance what

happened the night, they could have done that without a state of

emergency from a legal point of view. So the state of emergency is

just to show the French people, we are at war, we are doing something,

I am the leader, you can trust me and let me do this. In three weeks

from now, there are regional elections, very important one,

Hollande is doing very badly in the polls, the leader of the National

front is properly going to win so what Hollande announced on Monday is

his way to allure boaters from the right to him. His critics will say

he is in charge of intelligence agencies that have failed. Is that

fair? It's too early to judge. If you see the terrorists who was the

brain behind these attacks was hiding in Paris, he was supposed to

be in Syria, it shows there is a real problem. At the heart of the

problem is the exchange of information between intelligence

services and the analysis of the data because a lot of people are

under severe lives in France alone, 11,000 people are understood

available, but the problem is you can't check all this data because

there are not enough people. You can put thousands of literary personnel

on the streets but as long as you intelligence services don't work

properly we will continue to have these attacks. Let's go to the UK

now and speak to a former counterterrorist detective, who is

now a lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University. We are still not

clear about the identity of two of the suspects killed today but in the

short term, has Paris acted swiftly enough to get on top of this problem

in the immediate short-term? I think this has been a major move for the

better and if it is confirmed that Abaaoud has been captured,

especially alive, this has been quite a coup, and it will certainly

reduce the capability of Islamic State in the short-term, because you

look at how cells operate, you still beat some organisation and I think

the arrests in Belgium and France will have had some effect. If

I briefly lost communication there. We know that the two hasn't been

captured, what is unclear is if he may be one of the dead terrorists --

we know that Abaaoud hasn't been captured. When it comes to the

surveillance, though, is this really another wake-up call for all

European countries to be far more amateur night, come together much

more with sharing intelligence? I think so. On the policing side,

because you have the security services and the police, there is a

greater degree of sharing amongst policing agencies and through

agencies like the EU, it is a sticking point when we were

discussing the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 over the sharing of

intelligence services, maybe this could be one way forward, an

increase in sharing this. We are looking at a group that is a truly

international threat, you look at the actions they have done over the

last 12 months. So it needs that international response. So the

security services and the police should now really look to share this

information amongst each other. Russia is involved in this. Even

looking to sharing information with the FSB and vice versa.

Thank you very much indeed. There is a very strong Belgian connection

here as we have seen. The mastermind is a Belgian national and it does

seem as if these attacks last Friday were planned in Syria, the teams

were then put together through Belgium and then executed here in

Paris with the help of compasses here in France as well. --

compasses. The Brussels district of Molenbeek is linked particularly

with Friday's attacks and today there has been a vigil in memory of

those who lost their lives on Friday. This is the central square

in Molenbeek, you will be able to see that hundreds have come here

tonight to lay candles. The positioning thing along the word

Molenbeek. And the 00 over here has a peace sign, or perhaps the Eiffel

Tower, Finley how you want to read it. Lots of young people as well,

we're that the mayor in this square this evening, lots of people

standing in solidarity with the victims in Paris. Interestingly,

this is also a square just in front of the apartment of the Abdeslam

family, you will see candles shining on the balcony. A few minutes ago,

Mohammed Abdeslam, who is the brother of the man who is still on

the run, came out to lay candles, their family are still in shock.

Mohammed asked yesterday for his brother to give yourself up. This is

an effort by the community to show there is solidarity, remember there

are three attackers from here, there is now an international manhunt and

the secure the's office has told me that the manhunt is ongoing.

Hazard-macro said the aim of the raids was to

these actions confirm again that we are at war. The war against

terrorism which itself has decided to launch war against us. The

jihadist organisation of ISIL, it has an army, financial sources,

oil, resources and it occupies a territory, it has accomplices in

Europe and in our own country. ISIL has committed massacres and wants to

commit murders here and it has done so. At least 129 people were

killed, lost their lives on the night of the 13th of November. Our

thoughts are with them, with these men and women who have been cowardly

assassinated, we're thinking about their families, who have been thrown

into pain, grief. But these attacks concern all the French, wherever

they live in French territory, because it is the entire country

that has been attacked, for the simple reason that it represents,

the values it holds, we want to eradicate terrorism, and for the

simple reason of what we are. Aim of the terrorists was to target the

idea of France itself. The liberty that France has, universal

right-sided defends, -- universal rights that its defends, this is

what has been attacked during the night of the 13th of November.

Because these barbaric people in their blind violence have targeted

the diversity of the French people, irrespective of the origin, colour,

religion. It is the use of France that was the target, because it

represented the vitality, the generosity and the liberty, simply

speaking, life. A man whose wife died

in the attacks last week has written Antoine Leiris says he will never

forget Helene but he and their little boy will not be

made to live in fear or hate. On Friday night, you stole away

the life of an exceptional being. The love of my life,

the mother of my son. I do not know who you are and I

don't want to know. If the God for whom you

kill so blindly made us in his image, each bullet in my wife's body

would mean a wound in his heart. Therefore, I will not give you

the gift of hating you. Responding to hatred with anger

would be to give in to the same ignorance that has

made you what you are. You want me to be afraid,

to cast a mistrustful eye on my fellow citizens, to sacrifice

my freedom for security, you lost. I saw her this morning, she was just

as beautiful as she was when she left home on Friday evening, as

beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than 12 years

ago. Of course I am devastated with

grief, I know that she will join us every

day and that we will find each other again in the paradise of free souls

which you will never have access to. The Paris prosecutor,

Francois Molins, says a pre-dawn raid by police

on an apartment in the city stopped At a news conference, he said eight

people had been arrested during the operation, but they didn't include

the suspected mastermind of Friday's At least two bodies were found

in the apartment in Saint-Denis after the shoot out with police, but

they have not yet been identified. Police are still looking for

another suspect, Salah Abdelsalam.