Page 70 - min.jus 19nov,2015
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WORLD NEWSThursday 19 November 2015
At Press Time: Boko Haram kills
dozens in Nigeria
Official says Paris attacks mastermind not arrested suicide bombing
THOMAS ADAMSON information from tapped raid is just over a mile (less a good hour. I couldn’t M. FAUL
JILL LAWLESS telephone conversations, than two kilometers) from say how many shots were I. ABDULAZIZ
Associated Press surveillance and witness the Stade de France soc- fired, but it was probably Associated Press
SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) accounts indicated that cer stadium; three suicide 500. Hundreds, definitely. YOLA, Nigeria (AP) — The
— Heavily armed French Abaaoud might be in a bombers blew themselves There were maybe 10 ex- suicide bomber exploded
SWAT teams swooped in safe house in the Saint-De- up outside the stadium dur- plosions.” as truckers were tucking
Wednesday and neutral- nis suburb. ing an international soccer Police cordoned off an into dinner at the bustling
ized a cell that was ready Investigators have identi- match Friday. area around the building marketplace where ven-
to launch new attacks, dors urged them to buy
leaving at least two peo- Hooded police officers detain a man in Saint-Denis, near Paris, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015. A sugar cane. At least 34
ple dead after firing 5,000 woman wearing an explosive suicide vest blew herself up Wednesday as heavily armed police people were killed and an-
rounds during an hourslong tried to storm a suburban Paris apartment where the suspected mastermind of last week’s attacks other 80 wounded in Yola,
siege, a prosecutor said. was believed to be holed up, police said. a town packed with refu-
Eight people were arrested. gees from Nigeria’s Islamic
The raid had targeted the (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) uprising, emergency offi-
suspected planner of the cials said Wednesday.
attacks, 27-year-old Abdel- fied Abaaoud, a Belgian of They were one of three in a narrow street lined with Later Wednesday, two
hamid Abaaoud, but his Moroccan descent, as the teams of attackers who also low-rise buildings. Riot po- more suicide bombers
fate remained unclear. chief architect of Friday’s targeted a rock concert at lice cleared people from killed at least 15 people in
Paris prosecutor Francois attacks in Paris, which killed the Bataclan theater as the streets, pointing guns at the northern city of Kano
Molins said the identities of 129 people and wounded well popular night spots in a residents to move them off and injured 53, according
the dead were still being in- 368 others. trendy Paris neighborhood. the roads. to police. The blasts were
vestigated, but that neither A U.S. official briefed on The Islamic State group has “We tried to stop our chil- the latest by Boko Haram,
Abaoud nor the fugitive intelligence matters said claimed responsibility for dren hearing the noise,” Nigeria’s home-grown ex-
attacker Salah Abdeslam Abaaoud was a key figure the carnage, which has left said Farah Appane, who tremists whose 6-year in-
was in custody. in an Islamic State external France in mourning and on lives about 80 yards (me- surgency has killed 20,000
“At this time, I’m not in a operations cell that U.S. in- edge. ters) from where the raid and forced 2.3 million to
position to give a precise telligence agencies have On Wednesday, residents took place. “My 19-month- flee their homes.
and definitive number for been tracking for months. of Paris’ Saint-Denis neigh- old was crying. Our 8-year- Boko Haram was named
the people who died, nor Abaaoud is believed to borhood were shocked old said ‘What is it? Are Wednesday as the world’s
their identities, but there have escaped to Syria af- awake by an explosion at there more attacks?’” most deadly extremist
are at least two dead peo- ter a January police raid around 4:20 a.m. She said she could hear group in the Global Ter-
ple,” he told reporters. in Belgium, but he has Amine Guizani said the gunfire on and off for over rorism Index. Deaths at-
Earlier, the prosecutor’s of- bragged in Islamic State blast was followed by the an hour, followed by “one tributed to Boko Haram in-
fice had said the dead in- propaganda of his ability sound of grenades and au- really huge boom.” creased by 317 percent in
cluded a woman who det- to move back and forth tomatic gunfire. “It was when the woman 2014 to 6,644 compared to
onated an explosive vest between Europe and Syria “It was continuous. It didn’t exploded herself. It made 6,073 blamed on the Islam-
and a man hit by projec- undetected. stop,” he said. “It lasted our apartment shake it was ic State group. Boko Haram
tiles and grenades. But at The site of Wednesday’s from 4:20 until 5:30. It was so strong,” q pledged allegiance to IS in
a later news conference, March and calls itself that
Molins clarified the earlier group’s West Africa Prov-
statement that the wom- ince.
an blew herself up, saying: Wednesday’s explosions
“This point needs to be veri- came as President Mu-
fied by an analysis of the hammadu Buhari pressed
body and human remains, his campaign against Ni-
as well as by all the foren- geria’s endemic corrup-
sic police operations that tion, blamed for hamper-
have to be carried out.” ing the fight against the
Molins said heavily armed insurgents. Buhari accused
police squads initially were his predecessor’s national
thwarted by a reinforced security adviser of stealing
door to the apartment in billions of dollars meant to
the Saint-Denis neighbor- buy weapons to fight Boko
hood north of Paris and Haram, when soldiers had
faced nearly incessant fire just a few bullets and the Is-
as they worked to enter. lamic extremists were ram-
The prosecutor said the paging across northeast
raid was launched after Nigeria.q
