Two die in massive raid and firefight
One suspect blows herself up during seven-hour police operation aimed at trapping the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks
ST-DENIS, FRANCE—“I woke up to the bangs. Rat-tat-tat-tat. I thought it was another terrorist attack.”
Sebastien, a 17-year-old from St-Denis, immediately started texting his friends. They were all awake, too. Hyacinthe couldn’t sleep; he was still up at 4 a.m. when the shooting started, and went into the streets to try to catch a glimpse of what was going on.
“I couldn’t see anything, and before long a cop told me to get back inside, so I sat up and listened,” he said.
In the early hours of Wednesday, more
than 100 French police raided an apartment in St-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris only a stone’s throw from the Stade de France, one of the targets of Friday’s terrorist attacks. Eight people suspected of being involved in the attacks were arrested and two killed. One blew herself up with a suicide vest.
By 10 a.m., the streets of St-Denis were deserted, save for military trucks and soldiers stationed along major streets and at key intersections. The soldiers stood silently, but anyone who approached was met with a curt “back up!”
The subway was closed. Buses stopped running. People living in the centre of town were told to stay at home and draw the blinds. Police blocked off a large area around the two raided apartments, and the hundreds of journalists that had descended on Paris in the aftermath of the attacks massed behind the cordons.
Sebastien and Hyacinthe weaved in and out of the crowd, ducking between a Spanish journalist doing a live standup and dozens of cameramen and photographers with zoom lenses. They were still up six hours after the first shots, drunk on adrenalin and the curious idea of being in the world’s eye.
“I’ve never seen so many journalists before,” said Hyacinthe, who, like his friend, wouldn’t give his last name.
“I have enough trouble finding work as it is,” he explained. “I don’t want to be Googled and the first listing is a terrorist bust.”
“I’m surprised, shocked. I’ve seen this on television, but I never thought it could happen right next to where I live,” Sebastien added. “But I’m curious, too. I want to see what happened.”
The raids were the result of quick police work following last Friday’s attacks. Le Monde reported that police found a cellphone left in a garbage can outside the Bataclan. The last text message read: “It’s started. Let’s go.”
Investigators used the phone’s GPS to retrace the attackers’ route, leading them back to an apartment in central St-Denis, only blocks from city hall and the Grand Cathedral, Le Monde reported.
The raid was launched just after 4:10 a.m. and lasted for seven hours. After blowing open the door with explosives, the police got bogged down in an hours-long firefight with those inside, Jean-Michel Fauvergue, the head of France’s elite RAID police force, told Le Figaro. A sniper succeeded in wounding one suspect before another blew herself up with a suicide vest, he said. Police then threw 20 grenades into the apartment before entering.
There they found one suspect who had been mortally wounded by the grenade blasts and the remains of the suicide bomber. They made two arrests. Two other suspects were found hiding in the rubble. Three more were later picked up by police on the street.
At the conclusion of the raid, Paris prosecutor François Molins told the press police were hunting for Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected Belgian mastermind of the plot to attack Paris. The identities of those arrested and killed haven’t been released, and it remains unclear whether Abaaoud was present when police arrived.
On Wednesday afternoon, at a meeting of all the mayors of France, President François Hollande hailed the police officers’ bravery and put their actions into the context of a wider war against the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or Daesh, the Arabic name for the organization.
“I can only imagine the anxiety that the residents of St-Denis must have felt in the early morning hours and I salute their fearlessness,” Hollande said.
“We are at war against terrorists that decided to declare war on us. It’s the jihadist organization Daesh, which has an army, financial and petroleum resources. It occupies a territory, and has accomplices in Europe and in our country among young Islamist radicals. They commit massacres there and have killed here.
“What the terrorists were targeting was the idea of France. What it represents, what was born through the generations. The freedom it proclaims, the universal rights it defends.”
Hollande said the terrorists are seeking to plunge France into fear and division, but they wouldn’t succeed: “Unity makes our power. Fearlessness makes our dignity.”
But among the tripods and satellite trucks in St-Denis, Sebastien and Hyacinthe weren’t so sure. The suburbs — or banlieues — already have a bad reputation. This is sure to make it worse.
“St-Denis is known for its theft, assault, drugs and throwing rocks at the police. Now we’re going to add terrorism to the list,” Sebastien said.
“I don’t deny that this goes on here, but it’s not everyone.
“There are good people here too. But people don’t see it.”