Two dead in Paris anti-terror raid

French police besieged an apartment north of Paris on Wednesday in the hunt for the presumed mastermind behind the country's terrorist attacks, detaining seven people and leaving two dead, one of them a woman who blew herself up with a suicide vest.

Paris Prosecutor François Molins said the Belgian-born Islamic State operative Abdelhamid Abaaoud is not among detainees and police have not yet identified those killed.

However, the Washington Post has quoted two senior European intelligence officials suggesting Mr Abaaoud is among the casualties.

"As I speak I am unable to give you a definitive number and identities of people killed," Mr Molins said. He added that the investigation is slow because the building is at risk of collapsing after a shootout during which police fired around 5,000 rounds.

Officials say telephone records, intelligence and witnesses led investigators to think the Belgian-born Islamic State operative Mr Abaaoud could be taking refuge in the heart of the commercial district of Saint-Denis, a gritty neighborhood with a dense Muslim population. Until recently, authorities had believed Mr Abaaoud was in Syria.

If confirmed, Mr Abaaoud's presence so close to the scene of the Paris attacks would deepen concerns about Europe's security, and raise questions over how an Islamic State operative who featured prominently on Western military's target lists slipped back through borders to sow terror in the heart of the continent.

At 4.20am on Wednesday, security forces started a raid, which quickly turned a neighbourhood into a combat zone, with police flinging grenades and exchanging volleys of automatic gunfire with the heavily armed suspects in an apartment.

Soldiers in fatigues and elite police with machine guns secured a perimeter around the block, yet the ferocity of the resistance surprised the 110 police officers involved in the raid.

As police moved in to the scene, one of the suspects in the apartment -- a woman -- shot back at police using a Kalashnikov before detonating a suicide vest.

"There were lights and laser beams coming toward us," a woman who lives in the apartment below where the raid was taking place told French radio. "There were explosions and you could feel the building shaking."

The woman, who identified herself as Yasmine, said she heard men shouting "reload, reload" as she lay on the ground with her baby.

Later, injured police officers were shown limping away from the scene, aided by colleagues. Authorities advised residents near the sports arena to stay indoors.

French government spokesman Stéphane le Foll said at around 11.45am that the raid was over.

Police detained three men who were holed up in the apartment, and four people nearby.

A man claiming to be the occupant of the apartment raided by police at 48 Rue du Corbillion, was interviewed on French news channel BFMTV near the scene.

"I didn't know they were terrorists," the man said. "I was asked to put up two people for three days, I did a favour." One police official said the man has since been detained.

As the raid took place, French President François Hollande met at the Élysée Palace with Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Bernard Cazeneuve. The weekly cabinet meeting went ahead as usual.

Mr Abaaoud is one of two people who have emerged at the centre of the probe into the attacks that killed 129 people on Friday.

French and Belgian authorities are also searching for Salah Abdeslam, who they say took part in the attacks.

Dutch police said Wednesday he was fined €70 after police found a small quantity of "soft drugs" during a routine roadside check in early February. He was accompanied by one of his brothers and another man while they were traveling to Belgium, police said.

The names of Mr Abdeslam and his companions, who were traveling in a Belgium-registered car, were carefully checked but they didn't show up in the police records at the time, the police said.

On September 9, Mr Abdeslam was stopped and questioned upon entering Austria from Germany by car with two other men. Mr Abdeslam said he was on his way to a one-week vacation in Austria, Austrian authorities said Tuesday.

After watching surveillance video footage and videos shot by victims and passers-by, investigators say they now believe that three people were in a car that dropped off a suicide bomber near a restaurant in eastern Paris on Friday night. French authorities initially thought only two people were in the car: Mr Abdeslam and his brother, Brahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up in front of the restaurant.

The presence of three men suggests the group was comprised of at least nine people, including seven suicide bombers who carried out the Friday night massacre. Paris prosecutors Tuesday cautioned that the group of participants may have been even larger.

Originally published as Two dead in Paris anti-terror raid