Nine people were detained during a series of raids in Brussels today to find information relating to one of the Paris suicide bombers, Bilal Hadfi, who blew himself up near the Stade de France, Reuters are reporting.
Seven people were arrested during searches of six houses in Brussels as part of an ongoing investigation into Hadfi, while a further two people were detained after three more raids in the Belgian capital relating more generally to the Paris attacks, prosecutors said.
Only one of the seven suspects who perpetrated the coordinated attacks in Paris is thought to be still alive -- and he is still on the loose.
A manhunt is continuing for Salah Abdesalam, 26, a Belgian-born French national whose name was on rental documents for a Belgian-registered black Volkswagen Polo found outside the Bataclan concert hall.
Abdesalam's exact role in the attacks is unclear but he is suspected of renting cars and safe houses for the three Paris attack teams. His brother, Brahim, blew himself up near a restaurant after spraying bullets at diners.
Police issued an alert for Abdesalam on November 18, asking forces across the continent to be vigilant for a Citroen Xsara, registration AE-113-SY, which may be carrying the suspect.
Abdelsam was driven back to Belgium after the attacks by two other men, Hamza Attou adn Mohamed Amri, who were later arrested and the car seized in the Molenbeek district of Brussels. Abdesalam's two companions revealed they had been stopped three times by police on their way back to Belgium -- but were allowed to continue with their journey.
Abdesalam had called the two men at around 2 a.m. on November 14, saying his car had broken down. They picked him up about a mile from the Bataclan concert hall and drove him back to Belgium.
Fears of more attacks are still high in Paris. with the city's Central Mosque announcing that it has called off an anti-terrorism demonstration planned for tomorrow, citing security risks, the BBC's Katya Adler tweets.
Since the November 13 attacks, the French army has seen a threefold increase in requests for information and applications to join through its website, from about 500 a day to around 1,500.
"This is a completely new phenomenon," said Colonel Eric de Lapresle, who heads the French army's marketing and communications for recruitment office.
The military did not want to announce the increase during the three-day period of national mourning in France according to the Le Monde newspaper.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the chief suspect in last week's Paris attacks, was involved in four foiled terror attack cases, France's Interior Minister says.
Abaaoud was suspected of organizing a January plot to kill a Belgian police officer. That plot was thwarted, and ended up with two of Abaaoud's co-conspirators being shot dead by police in a raid in Verviers.
The Belgian militant was also involved in plotting an attack on a high speed train to Paris from Brussels. That attack was foiled by three U.S. soldiers.
Abaaoud boasted in IS's glossy magazine, Dabiq, that he had fooled European intelligence services.
"My name and picture were all over the news yet I was able to stay in their homeland, plan operations against them, and leave safely when doing so became necessary," he bragged.
France 24 tweets a chilling reminder about suspected Paris attacks mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, now confirmed dead in yesterday's raid on a Saint-Denis apartment block.
Euronews reports that Paris's Saint-Denis district, the site of yesterday's dramatic police raid on an apartment block, is slowly returning to normal.
Schools have reopened after being closed on November 18.
But there is still a heavy security presence in the neighborhood and local residents say they are concerned that the current state of emergency will mean more checks and security.
"How many people did they kill? It’s really, really serious. I can’t even speak, I am shocked," one Muslim woman who lives in the area told Euronews.
French officials have yet to confirm the identity of the woman who blew herself up with an explosive vest at the beginning of yesterday's raid on an apartment block in a northern suburb of Paris.
AP is reporting that three police officials have said the woman was the cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks, who the Paris prosecutor has confirmed was killed in the raid.
Various French news sites have also reported that the woman was Abaaoud's cousin, but this has not been officially confirmed.
AP say that one official said the woman was believed to have detonated her suicide vest after a brief altercation with police officers.
The official said that one of the officers asked the woman where her boyfriend was. She responded: "He's not my boyfriend," and then there was an explosion.
AP also includes the grisly detail that the bodies recovered from the raided apartment were "badly mangled, with part of the woman's spine landing on a police car."
The U.S. Embassy in Rome has identified some of Italy's most popular tourist sites as potential targets for terrorist attacks, warning U.S. citizens to "remain vigilant and aware of their surroundings."
St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the Duomo and La Scala in Milan as well as "general venues" like churches, synagogues, restaurants and theaters in both cities were named as "potential targets."
"Terrorist groups may possibly utilize similar methods used in the recent Paris attacks," the embassy website has warned.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the attacks that killed 129 in Paris was among those killed in a police raid in a suburb of the French capital on Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor said in a statement on Thursday, Reuters reports.
"Abdel Hamid Abaaoud has just been formally identified, after comparing fingerprints, as having been killed during the (police) raid," the statement said.
"It was the body we had discovered in the building, riddled with bullets."
Abaaoud, 28, was a Belgian militant who bragged about mounting attacks in Europe on behalf of IS.
The prosecutor said that it was unclear at this stage whether Abaaoud blew himself up or not, according to Reuters.
AP, which gives Abaaoud's age as 27, is reporting that Abaaoud was identified "based on skin samples."