Posted on 11/20/15
| News Source: VIN
France - The Paris prosecutor’s office says that a third body was found overnight in an apartment raided by police searching for suspects in last week’s Paris attacks.
The office said in a statement Friday that the body is that of a woman but her identity is unclear.
Prosecutors earlier identified one of the others killed in Wednesday’s raid in Saint-Denis as suspected mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
The development comes as European Union interior and justice ministers are gathering for an emergency meeting in Brussels on how best to respond to the threat of violent extremism.
It is expected France and Belgium will push to tighten gun laws, toughen border security and choke off funds to extremist groups.
But the ministers are not expected to order any new measures that could be immediately introduced to restore calm among countries rattled by the coordinated attacks in Paris, claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) organization, that killed 129 people.
Documents prepared for the Friday meeting in Brussels and seen by The Associated Press indicate the ministers instead will try to push forward on priorities already identified, but not acted on, by EU leaders following an earlier round of deadly attacks in Paris on a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery in January.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is exhorting his EU partners to toughen the bloc’s borders and move forward on a long-delayed system for collecting airline passenger information.
Cazeneuve warned them on Friday that “we can’t take more time. This is urgent.”
“Terrorists are crossing the borders of the European Union,” he said, underlining why the EU must adopt a so-called passenger name record system, which has been held up for years.
He said the system would allow the EU to better track extremists and foreign fighters coming and going from Syria and Iraq.
Meanwhile, it was announced Friday that French President Francois Hollande will preside over a national ceremony on Nov. 27.
The ceremony will be held at the gold-domed Hotel des Invalides, where Napoleon’s tomb lies and which is seen as a symbol of France’s military and international strength.
More than 350 people were wounded in the Nov. 13 attacks on Parisian cafes, the national stadium and a rock concert. Scores are in critical condition, and medical authorities have warned that the death toll is likely to rise.