Suspected Architect of Paris Attacks Is Dead, 2 Senior European Officials Say

More than 100 police officers and soldiers stormed an apartment building in Saint-Denis, a bustling suburb home to many immigrants, during a seven-hour siege that left at least two people dead, officials said.

The dead ­included the suspected overseer of the Paris bloodshed, Abdel­hamid Abaaoud, according to the two senior European officials. Abaaoud, a Belgian extremist, had once boasted that he could slip easily between Europe and strongholds of the ISIL terrorist group in Syria.

Paris prosecutor François Molins, speaking to reporters hours after the siege, said he could not provide the identities of the people killed at the scene. A French security official declined to confirm or deny that Abaaoud had died. US officials said they were awaiting confirmation of the identities of those slain.

The two European officials from different countries, who have followed the case closely, said they had received the information about Abaaoud’s death from French authorities. The two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear how Abaaoud died — whether in police gunfire, by his own hand or in a suicide blast triggered by a woman in the apartment.

After the raid, forensics experts combed through blown-out windows and floors collapsed by explosions, presumably seeking DNA and other evidence.

Molins said a discarded cellphone helped identify safe houses used by attackers to plan Friday’s coordinated assaults, which killed 132 people and wounded more than 350 in a series of attacks at a stadium, a concert hall and restaurants across Paris.

Molins said police launched the raid after receiving a witness tip suggesting that Abaaoud was ­“entrenched” on the third floor of the Saint-Denis building. He said that neither Abaaoud nor another wanted suspect, Salah Abdeslam, was among eight people who were arrested at the apartment and surrounding locations on Wednesday. Three people were arrested in the raid itself, one of whom suffered a gunshot wound in the arm, he said.

Molins said the sophisticated militant cell used three safe houses around Paris — including the Saint-Denis apartment — and three rental cars to launch the attack. It was “a huge logistics plan, meticulously carried out,” he said.

Abaaoud was the target of a major dragnet in the international search — which stretches from Belgium to Syria — for suspects in Friday’s carnage.

Supporters of the ISIL, the extremist group whose vast domain straddles Syria and Iraq, have vowed to inflict repeated attacks on the West, including in Europe.