Mastermind of Paris attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud died in police raid: prosecutor

Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian militant, was accused of orchestrating the bombings

Paris

: 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, the Paris prosecutor said in a statement on Thursday.

Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian militant, who had boasted of mounting attacks in Europe for the Islamic State, was accused of orchestrating Friday's coordinated bombings and shootings in the French capital.

Police originally thought he was in Syria, but their investigations led them to a house in the Paris suburb of St. Denis and heavily armed officers stormed the building before dawn, triggering a massive firefight and multiple explosions.

Abbaoud is the child of Moroccan immigrants who grew up in the Belgian capital's scruffy and multiethnic Molenbeek-Saint-Jean neighborhood.

He is believed to have links to earlier terror attacks that were thwarted: one against a Paris-bound high-speed train that was foiled by three young Americans in August, and the other against a church in the French capital's suburbs.