Paris terrorists caught in raid planned to attack airport, mall next

The jihadists holed up in a Paris suburb apartment had been planning to attack Charles de Gaulle Airport and a shopping mall before a special forces team stopped them in the nick of time in a predawn raid Wednesday, French media reported.

French authorities said the terrorists in Saint-Denis comprised a fourth team of jihadists hell-bent on unleashing death and terror — in addition to the three teams that killed 129 people and injured 350 others in Paris on Friday, France TV reported.

A woman wearing an explosive vest blew herself up, one terrorist and a police dog were killed, and seven people were arrested Wednesday when special forces tried to storm the apartment where the alleged mastermind of last week’s slaughter was believed to be staying, authorities said.

The raid was launched after information from tapped phone conversations, surveillance and witness accounts indicated that Abdelhamid Abaaoud might be in the apartment in Saint-Denis, French prosecutor Francois Molins said.

Authorities could not immediately confirm whether Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamic State militant, was killed or arrested Wednesday morning.

DNA tests will be used to determine if the alleged ringleader was killed, a Belgian counterterrorism official told CNN.

The raid resulted in the collapse of an entire floor of the apartment building, where authorities found body parts, the source told CNN.

The terrorists in the apartment were planning a strike at the Paris airport and the Mall of Quatre Temps in La Défense (Hauts-de-Seine), according to France 2.

Police were seen escorting away a man who was naked from the waist down, and another wrapped in a gold emergency blanket.

“As things stand, it is impossible to give you the identities of the people detained, which are being verified,” Molins said at the scene. “All will be done to determine who is who, and based on the work of forensic police, we’ll tell you who was in the apartment — and what consequences it will have for the development of the investigation.”

French President François Hollande praised the bravery of the forces and said that France was “at war.”

“It is the entire country that’s been attacked,” Hollande told a gathering of French mayors. “For what it represents, the fight we are leading to eradicate terrorism. And simply for what we are.”

A standoff continued for more than seven hours — with gunfire and loud bangs reverberating throughout the historic suburb.

Four police officers were slightly injured and a SWAT team dog, a Malinois named Diesel, was shot dead by terrorists in the action, police said.

“The operation is over,” government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said about 6 a.m. EST.

The city of Saint-Denis also tweeted that a security perimeter was still set up — warning residents not to leave their homes.

A police official said he believed the Belgian Islamic State jihadist was in the apartment along with five others when the raid was launched not far from the Stade de France, where three of the seven attackers blew themselves up on Friday.