The suspected ringleader of the Paris terrorist attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed in a police raid on Wednesday, the prosecutor's office said Thursday, NBC News reported.
The 27-year-old Belgian jihadist, who was also linked to two other terror plots and once boasted about avoiding capture by Western intelligence agencies, died during the operation in Saint-Denis. He was identified by his fingerprints. Officials said his body was bullet-ridden.
He died along with a woman who blew herself up with a suicide belt, and another man, when elite police forces stormed the scene. Eight other people were arrested.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve later said that Abaaoud was involved in four of the six attacks foiled by French intelligence agents since this spring.
A source close to the investigation told Reuters that the dead female bomber killed might have been Abaaoud's cousin. NBC News was unable to independently verify that report.
