Five Arrested in Northern Paris As Police Dog Dies During Exchange of Gun Fire

Reuters | Paris

Five people have been arrested in the stand-off north of Paris targeting, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of Friday's terror attacks, Reuters has reported in an ongoing operation in Saint Denis.

* Face of evil: Abdelhamid Abaaoud

The disclosure that Abaaoud is believed to be in Paris sparked the raids on the north of Paris and it is thought his taunts was made from his hideout location.

But a police official says that one person is still holed up in an apartment, after hours-long standoff with police in which two were killed while five were arrested.

One woman in a suicide vest is thought to have blown herself up as police hunting the Paris terrorists lay siege to a flat where the mastermind of the attacks is believed to be hiding.

Repeated gunfire and explosions could be heard from the scene in the Saint-Denis suburb in the north of the city, close to the Stade de France national stadium, where three suicide bombers blew themselves up during Friday night's slaughter that killed at least 129 people.

Residents have been evacuated from the area as scores of heavily armed officers flooded the streets.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, from Belgium, has been named by French officials as the man behind the massacre and was initially believed to be in Syria.

Police believe Abaaoud was in the apartment with up to five other heavily armed people.

Police anti-terrorist officers raided the apartment in a pre-dawn operation and a shoot-out followed.

The number of injured police officers rises to four, source say.

The LA Grappe D'OR Bar is blocked by several police and emergency vehicles and officers are combing the vicinity after resident were evacuated.

A police dog was reportedly killed during police operation in, while President Hollande was said to be holding emergency meeting at Elysee Palace to monitor#SaintDenis raid.

In the French authorities confirmed the operation ending with two people dead and seven others arrested.

One of the dead was a woman who detonated her device instead of allowing police to arrest her. It was a lengthy operation to took some seven hours which began with a lengthy gun battle, according to Fox News.

Police say 2 suspects were killed, one of them a woman who blew herself up with a suicide vest, and 7 others were arrested.

The identities of the suspects were not immediately known.