French police have arrested seven people in a raid of apartment in Paris suburb of St Denis. A woman wearing an explosive suicide vest blew herself up during the raids by heavily armed police. The raid began around 4.15 am (Paris time), when special police forces, backed by truckloads of soldiers, cordoned off an area near the Place Jean Jaures, a main square in St-Denis not far from the Stade de France, where three attackers blew themselves up last Friday.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud Dead after 7-hour siege:

More than 100 French police and soldiers fired 5,000 bullets during a ferocious seven-hour raid in which the mastermind of the Paris attacks is shot dead. Seven others were arrested during the raid but authorities were unsure if Abaaoud had indeed been at the flat. Francois Richier, the French ambassador to India, later said in Delhi that the 28-year-old may have committed suicide during the raid.

Abaaoud was born in Belgium and grew up in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, which had become a key focus for investigators in recent days. Although studying at a Catholic school, he became involved in petty crime with his family shocked when he took his 13-year-old brother Younes with him to travel to Syria in January 2014.

Like many who travel to the so-called “Islamic State”, his actions appear to have been motivated by a thirst for power, violence and unaccountability than religion. “They did not even go to the mosque,” the brothers’ older sister Yasmina told the New York Times earlier this year.

He was also linked to foiled terror attacks in Europe, including one aboard a Paris-bound high speed train that was prevented by two US soldiers overpowering the attacker.

Watch: French police anti-terror raid in Saint Denis

The sound of automatic gunfire woke the residents in the next street and the surrounding area as police exchanged shots with the terrorists.

In the days since the second major terror attack in Paris this year, French authorities have conducted 414 raids, made 60 arrests and seized 75 weapons.