The primary suspect believed to have coordinated the Paris attacks was killed during a Wednesday police raid, French officials announced on Thursday.
Authorities identified Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian national, it took officials 24 hours after the raid to identify Abaaoud because his body was heavily damaged from gunshot wounds and a detonated grenade, the New York Times reports.
Paris officials carried out the extensive raid in the Saint-Denis suburb of Paris. It resulted in a shootout that lasted almost eight hours, during which police and militants fired more than 5,000 rounds. The raid claimed the lives of two suspected ISIS operatives, including Abaaoud and his 26-year-old cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen, who detonated a suicide vest.
Paris prosecutor François Molins is unsure whether or not Abaaoud was disfigured from the suicide blast by Aitboulahcen, or if he also blew himself up.
“We now know that Abaaoud, the brain behind these attacks—one of the brains, because we must be particularly cautious, and we know what the threats are—was among the dead,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the National Assembly, according to the Times.
Seven suspected militants were also arrested during Wednesday’s raid, although their identities have not been released.
Following last week's attacks that killed 129 people, France has mobilized 115,000 security officers.
