New IS video reaffirms NYC as target

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The New York Police Department says it’s aware of a newly released Islamic State group video showing images of Times Square but says there’s no current or specific threat to the city.

An NYPD spokesman says in a statement issued Wednesday some of the video footage is old but the video reaffirms the message the city remains a top terrorist target. He says the police department will remain vigilant and continue to work with the FBI and the intelligence community.

The NYPD says it will continue to deploy additional counterterrorism teams throughout the city.

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio says the city won’t be intimidated. He says people should continue to live their lives and “enjoy the greatest city in the world.”

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he has directed state agencies to “enhance their preparedness.”

The hunt for the mastermind of last week’s attacks took a bloody turn Wednesday to a Paris suburb where a fierce gunbattle with police left at least two people dead and eight arrested. The fate of the alleged ringleader was unclear, with authorities saying he was not taken alive and they were trying to determine if he died in the raid.

Police launched the operation after receiving information from tapped phone calls, surveillance and tipoffs suggesting that 27-year-old Abdelhamid Abaaoud was holed up in an apartment in Paris’ Saint-Denis neighborhood.

Terrified residents awoke to gunfire and explosions as a SWAT team swooped in and “neutralized” what Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins called a “new team of terrorists” that appeared ready for a new attack.

Molins said the identities of the dead were still being investigated, but that neither Abaaoud nor another fugitive, Salah Abdeslam, was in custody.

“At this time, I’m not in a position to give a precise and definitive number for the people who died, nor their identities, but there are at least two dead people,” Molins said.

The site of Wednesday’s raid is not far from the Stade de France soccer stadium; three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the stadium during an international soccer game as part of the attacks last Friday that left 129 people dead and hundreds wounded.

Molins said police units including snipers threw grenades and fired 5,000 rounds in an hourlong gunbattle that began before dawn Wednesday. The dead included a woman who was believed to have blown herself up with a suicide belt, though Molins said “this point needs to be verified by an analysis of the body and human remains.”

Five police were wounded, and a SWAT team dog was killed in the intense gunbattle during which the third floor of the apartment building collapsed.

The head of one of the special forces units that took part in the raid, Jean-Michel Fauverge, said police used drones and robots equipped with cameras in an attempt to see what was going on inside during the raid but there was too much debris.