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Paris: Gunfire and explosions have shattered Paris' fragile peace, and at least two people have died in a pre-dawn police raid targeting the alleged mastermind of last Friday's terror attack.
One of the dead was a young woman who detonated an explosive during the raid, police said.
The as-yet-unidentified other person was killed by "projectiles and grenades" in the police assault on an apartment building in Saint-Denis, north of Paris.
The Washington Post has reported European intelligence officials as saying the operation killed senior Islamic State operative Abdelhamid Abaaoud, reported to be the 'mastermind' of the attacks, but this was not confirmed by Paris prosecutor Francois Molins at a post-raid press conference.
Eight people were arrested during the raid, in which police fired more than 5000 bullets, deployed snipers and threw stun grenades.
Afterwards the building was left in a state near collapse, making it hard for detectives to be definitive about the number of deaths. And the state of the bodies will make identification a slow process.
By the end of the day prosecutors still did not know whether they had got their man.
The raid came after fresh intelligence led police to believe Abaaoud was "likely" to be hiding in an apartment in Saint-Denis in the city's north, Mr Molins said.
They also hoped to capture Salah Abdeslam, the fugitive terrorist who is the subject of an international manhunt in connection with Friday's atrocity, and who was believed to have rented the apartment as a safe house for the terror cell behind it.
But neither Abaaoud nor Abdeslam were among those arrested in the operation, Mr Molins said.
Three suspects were detained early in the raid, then two more people were found wounded in the rubble and subsequently arrested.
Three more people were also arrested in the area: one who had provided the accommodation (but denied any connection to the terror cell), his acquaintance, and a third wounded man believe to be connected to the apartment.
Police said one police dog – seven-year-old Diesel – died in the raid, and five officers were wounded.
Gunfire broke out in the suburb of Saint-Denis before dawn on Wednesday, as an elite police unit led the assault.
The apartment is two kilometres from the Stade de France football stadium which was attacked by three suicide bombers on Friday.
Several explosions were heard by locals over the first three hours of the police operation.
For most of Wednesday morning, local time, hundreds of police and army surrounded the building, cordoning off local streets, evacuating and searching the area.
Just before noon a French government spokesman said the operation was over and all terrorists had been "neutralised", as detectives and forensic workers moved in.
The raid had targeted Abaaoud, a Moroccan-born Belgian named as the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks and other attempted jihadist plots.
The 27-year-old Abaaoud is one of IS's most senior European operatives, though he was previously thought to be in Syria.
There were reports this terror cell had been preparing a new attack, possibly at La Defense, the city's business and financial district.
Local resident Dina told France 24 that she woke up at 4.30am to the sound of gunshots.
People from the apartment building where the raid took place told France 24 they were initially told to stay in their homes, but after an explosion rocked the building they were evacuated.
Local Metro stations were closed, as well as local schools.
Police have raided hundreds of homes over the past three days, making arrests, seizing what has been described as an "arsenal" of weapons and imposing house arrests.
Under France's state of emergency, police have greater powers to conduct raids without judicial oversight.
On Tuesday, police launched a search for a ninth suspect linked to the Friday attacks, after new clues came from a mobile phone believed to have been used by one of the attackers and found in a rubbish bin near the Bataclan theatre.
The phone reportedly contained a detailed plan for a hostage siege and the message: "let's go".
Abaaoud grew up in the Molenbeek district of Brussels
He was reportedly an associate of Salah Abdeslam – a suspected attacker in the Friday attack in Paris who is the subject of an international manhunt – and his brother, Brahim, who blew himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire bar without taking any lives.
Abaaoud went to Syria in 2013 to join IS and became a leading French-speaking recruiter, featuring in a gruesome propaganda video in 2014.
He had been linked to a foiled attack on a high-speed train in August, and another foiled attack on a church in Villejuif in France.
Kalashnikov-type weapons were found in a car with Belgian number plates in northern Paris on Tuesday – believed to be hired by Salah Abdeslam and used in the attack.
Police have identified two houses rented by the brothers in Paris in the week before the attacks.
Friday's attacks in Paris left 129 people dead and 352 injured, several dozen of whom are still be in critical condition in hospital.
Seven of the attackers died during the attacks.
Earlier on Wednesday two Air France flights to Paris were diverted after take-off in the United States after bomb threats were received.
On Wednesday morning France's cabinet received a bill to extend the country's state of emergency for three months.
President Francois Hollande, in a speech to the country's gathered mayors, reiterated his claim that France was "at war" with Daesh (another name for IS), and argued for proposed new laws extending police and security service powers.
Terrorists had attacked the "very idea of France", he said. He warned that Daesh must not be allowed "to poison us with stigmatisation, fear and division ... France will remain the country of freedom".
"Life must go on," he said. "Our duty is to ensure that life goes on."
With Reuters
