French investigators said Thursday that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris terrorist attacks, died Wednesday in a major police operation in a suburb of the city.
French investigators confirmed on Thursday that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader in last week's bloody terrorist attacks in Paris was killed in a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday on an apartment building north of the French capital, the Paris prosecutor's office announced Thursday.
A Belgian counterterrorism official said authorities zeroed in on a building in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis after picking up phone conversations indicating that a relative of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who authorities believe coordinated the shootings and bombings that killed 129 people, may have been there.
It turns out Abaaoud was in that building in Saint-Denis. And after a violent firefight that included explosions and gunfire, he was killed.
In a statement released Thursday, the Paris prosecutor's office said that Abaaoud's body was found in the Saint-Denis building riddled with bullets. The office said that he was positively identified using papillary prints, which include patterns on fingers, palms and the soles of the feet.
Exactly how he died, at this point, isn't known. Police fired around 5,000 rounds of ammunition in the confrontation and used strong munitions that spurred a floor to collapse.
A police dog also died in the operation, while five police officers were slightly wounded.
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