Presumed kingpin behind Paris attacks questioned in 2014

The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks that killed 129 people was questioned by German police at Cologne-Bonn airport early last year before he boarded a plane to Istanbul, Spiegel magazine reported on Thursday, quoting security officials.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud (28) was killed in a shootout on Wednesday, the French prosecutor has said. His body has been formally identified at the Rue de Corbillon in the Paris suburb following the raid at St-Denis, the prosecutor said.

Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian killed in a police raid in the French capital on Wednesday, told German police on January 20th, 2014, he wanted to visit family and friends in the Turkish city and would return to Europe, Spiegel said.

The German interior ministry had no immediate comment.

Belgian authorities on Thursday launched six raids in the Brussels region linked to Bilal Hadfi, one of the suicide bombers in Friday's attacks.

At least one of the raids, in Laeken in northern Brussels, is directly connected to the Friday night attacks, Belgian media reported.

The other raids, taking place in various locations across the city, including Molenbeek, are targeting those believed to have links with Bilal Hadfi, a twenty-year old jihadist who blew himself up outside Stade de France in Paris on Friday night.

In addition to the raid in Laeken, searches are underway in the districts of central Brussels, Jette, Uccle and Molenbeek. Uccle, a leafy suburban area in the south of the city, is the location of a number of embassies and official residences.

News of the raids emerged as Belgian prime minister Charles Michel announced a sweeping set of measures that are to be introduced in the wake of attacks. Among the 18 measures that have been announced are an extension of the time suspected terrorists can be held from 24 hours to 72 hours, electronic tagging of terrorists, a € 400 million increase in the security budget and the deployment of 520 extra police officers.

Authorities say a second attack was foiled when Swat teams laid siege to a flat in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis for seven hours in a major pre-dawn raid on Wednesday.

A woman suicide bomber blew herself up and another person, now known to be Abaaoud, died following the gunfight, while eight people were arrested.

French prime minister Manuel Valls warned terrorists could use chemical or biological weapons, and urged an extension of France's state of emergency.

Mr Molins said the operation on Wednesday had neutralised a “new terrorist threat”, and that “everything led us to believe that, considering their armaments, the structured organisation and their determination, they were ready to act”.

The jihadis were set to carry out a second attack targeting Charles de Gaulle airport and the city’s financial district La Defense, according to reports.

Salah Abdeslam, one of the suspected gunmen who is now the focus of an international manhunt, was not among those arrested, the prosecutor added.

Belgian police are also reportedly searching for a man named Mohamed K, from Roubaix, northern France, who is suspected of supplying the terrorist gang with explosives.

Belgian prime minister Charles Michel has pledged €400 million euros for a package of additional anti-terror measures in the wake of the attacks in Paris.

Wednesday’s raid was launched after a discarded mobile phone and tapped telephone conversations allowed investigators to identify a series of safe houses, with the suggestion that Abaaoud may have been holed up in an apartment less than a mile from the Stade de France, where one of the terror attacks took place.

Police fired about 5,000 rounds of ammunition during an early-morning exchange of gunfire which lasted about an hour as the terrorist cell barricaded themselves in the hideout.

Heavily armed police squads were initially thwarted by an armoured door and had to use assault guns, sniper rifles, grenades and explosives during the “extremely difficult” and “complex” operation.

Two bodies were found in the rubble of the building after an explosion thought to have been caused when a woman, named in reports as Abaaoud's cousin Hasna Aitboulachen, detonated a suicide vest.

Mr Molins said: “At least one terrorist killed herself with an explosive. The floor of the flat collapsed and the state of the bodies and what is left of them will demand some more investigation.”

He added: “I’m not in a position to give a precise and definitive number for the people who died, nor their identities, but there are at least two dead people.”

Two men were found inside the flat, one of whom was injured and arrested. The eight arrested included one woman and a man whose flat was used as a hideout by the terror cell and are being interrogated.

Additional reporting PA/Reuters