Abdelhamid Abaaoud with the ISIS flag in Syria The mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud , has been killed in a polic...
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| Abdelhamid Abaaoud with the ISIS flag in Syria |
The mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, has
been killed in a police raid of an apartment in Saint Denis, a suburb
of Paris on Wednesday, November 18, 2015.
The early morning raid followed an intelligence tip off that the mastermind was still holed up in Paris and not outside
the country as it was first thought. A single mother, who is also a tenant of
the apartment building, told French reporters about how police raided the building at
about 4am and the gunshots and explosions that followed.
A woman, who has now been identified as, Hasna Ait Boulachen - the cousin of
Abaaoud, blew herself up via an explosive vest after she was heard to have
shouted “Help me! Help me! im not his
girlfriend”. The explosion also claimed the life of a 7-year old police dog
named Diesel. Diesel’s death has generated sympathy from around the world with
the trend #JeSuisChien (literally I am dog) used to show solidarity with the
military animal.
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| Hasna Ait Boulachen |
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| "Diesel" the dog that was killed in the apartment raid |
After the raid, the police confirmed that two
people died while seven others were arrested; but fell short of confirming if
Abaaoud was one of them. Reports emanating on Thursday, November 19 2015,
from French prosecutors have now confirmed that the second dead person was
indeed Abaooud. His body was reported to be found riddled with bullet and shrapnel.and
him was identified through fingerprint.
This is a big success in the war against ISIS as the radicalised Belgian, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, is a top Europe-based recruiter for ISIS. He has been a thorn in the flesh of the international coalition against terrorism; escaping arrest many times including a January 2015 raid of an Islamist cell based in Belgium.
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| Abaaoud in an interview boasting of his numerous escapes from Western intelligence forces |
