Two Suspects Dead In Paris Police Raid

Two suspects linked to Friday's deadly attacks in Paris have died after police raided an apartment in a northern suburb of the French capital, a prosecutor said, as police declared the operation was over. 

Paris' prosecutor Francois Molins said a female suspect killed herself by detonating a vest rigged with explosives at the start of the operation in Saint-Denis early on Wednesday.

A second suspect was shot during the raid, police said. 

The identity of the casualties was not immediately released. However, French media said the target of the operation was Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a key suspect of the attacks, in which at least 129 people were killed.

Another suspect, Salah Abdeslam, was also said to be a target in the raids.

Heavily armed police were seen hauling away a naked man from the building at the centre of the raid in Saint-Denis.

Earlier, Molins said in a statement that three men holed up inside the apartment were arrested, while a man and woman were arrested near the location of the raid.

Three police officers and a passer-by were wounded in an initial shootout at the apartment, sources told Al Jazeera.

Residents of the area in northern Paris first reported hearing bursts of gunfire at 4:30am (3:30 GMT), as police exchanged fire with the suspects.

After a short lull in the operation, at least seven explosions were heard at 6:30 GMT, with more explosions reported later in the morning as a standoff ensued. 

About 50 soldiers, heavily armed special police units and ambulances gathered at the scene as a helicopter was hovering over the area.

"Saint-Denis is a relatively poor area, housing many immigrants. It is near the area of the national stadium Stade de France, where suicide bombers claimed several lives during Friday's attacks," Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reported from the scene.

Police also detained a man who said the suspects were staying in his flat.

"I found out that it's at my house, and that the people are holed up at my flat. I didn't know they were terrorists," Jawad Ben Dow told Reuters news agency.

"Someone asked me to put two people up for three days and I did them a favour, it's normal. I don't know where they came from I don't know anything. If I'd known do you think I'd have done it?" he said.

Police were telling onlookers to clear the vicinity of the operation and blocked off a street in the area, as ambulances and fire engines lined the streets a stone's throw from the centre of Saint-Denis. 

Friday night's attacks in the French capital, claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), raised security concerns around the world, with an international football match called off in Germany and two Air France flights from the United States diverted.

Bomb threat

French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday will hold a meeting to discuss proposals to extend by three months the state of emergency declared after attacks, the worst in French history.

It will then be put to vote by lawmakers on Thursday and Friday.

In a sign of the nervousness gripping Europe after Friday's carnage, a football match between Germany and the Netherlands was cancelled on Tuesday and the crowd evacuated after police acted on a "serious" bomb threat.

As police stepped up the hunt for the fugitives, French and Russian jets pounded ISIL targets in the group's self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa in Syria for a third consecutive day.

France and Russia have vowed merciless retaliation for the Paris attacks and last month's bombing of a Russian airliner, also claimed by ISIL, which have galvanised international resolve to destroy the group and end Syria's more than four-year civil war.

"It's necessary to establish direct contact with the French and work with them as allies," Russian President Vladimir Putin said as France prepared to send an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean.

Hollande will meet Putin in Moscow on November 26, two days after seeing US President Barack Obama in Washington.