At least one policeman has been injured in a shootout during an ongoing police raid targeting the alleged mastermind of Friday’s terror attacks.

Citing police sources, BFMTV said the main target of the police operation in St-Denis, a town bordering Paris, was the suspected mastermind, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, believed to have in Syria but now apparently in France.

The other two men in holed up with him in the apartment block were believed to be Salah Abdeslam, the subject of a major manhunt since Saturday, and an unidentified “ninth attacker” sought since Tuesday night.

A BFMTV reporter at the scene said the gunfire had now stopped after a battle that continued for more than two hours, since about 4.30am, at an apartment block on the rue Gabriel Péri, near key shopping streets and residential streets. Neighbours who had opened their windows have been ordered to close them. BFMTV reported that a passerby might have been injured. The metro is closed and buses in the area are shut down. Locals are being advised not to leave their homes.

It is not known whether the “massive” police operation, had succeeded in capturing them, whether they were injured, or whether negotiations were underway.

Posted By Abdul