The church where police were banging away at that door, trying to wedge it open for fight some time. When they finally succeeded in doing that, we saw them filing in there. Its not clear what the source of the threat or the intelligence that led them to this church is. Were about 500 meters or so away from the Apartment Building that was the source of the raids overnight. Police filed into that church, you can see from their posture they appear to be pretty calm now. Certainly this has been a pretty chaotic, ongoing scene on the ground since about 4 30 local this morning. As a series of raids trying to, they believe, drill down on the believed mastermind of fridays attacks. A 27yearold belgian of moroccan origin. His name is Abdelhamid Abaaoud. He was thought to lead a plot in january that was thwarted. Everybody thought he had gone back to syria or iraq. French and coalition authorities. Reporter tarretting him in syria and iraq. Now it appears, again, i say it appears, this situation is very fluid. Theres a lot of information coming through and we want to make sure we really lock it down before reporting it but it appears that he is the focus, the target of this raid overnight. No word yet on whether anything actually happened in terms of finding him. But certainly we do know that as many as two people were killed, three arrested. A woman who was wearing a suicide vest blew herself up. A lot of moving parts here, chris. Were continuing to keep an eye on this church to see if that may reveal anything. Its worth noting as well, the residents around here, all around us, they cant believe what is happening, chris. This is paris. This is europe. People are not used to seeing police banging down doors, heavy armed, detonated explosions going off all through the night, suicide bombers. This is unchartered territory for parisians. Chris . Theres no question, theres no other word for it but bizarre right now. Christiane, weve reached a point where officers just tore a hole through a church door while presumptively looking for a muslim terrorist who might be inside, probably not, based on the way that they entered after a night of explosives and gunfire in a place where they discovered yet another team they believe was poised to attack. These radicals, these terrorists have been on the run. Weve had International Arrest warrants, manhunt been going on since saturday. Lets not forget, it is not just abaaoud who is considered the mast mastermind but another organizers as well, salah abdeslam. For the last two days weve been talking about him as well. There are a number of people they are still trying to nail down. In 12 hours the reporting went from they were trueing to kill this guy in syria, right before the attacks. Couldnt find him. Now he might be in a church in their own backyard . Indeed. I asked secretary kerry yesterday when i sat with them to confirm the reports that the french wanted to get in on the drone attack. He wouldnt go there. He wasnt going to go there. Abaaoud, hes the most important, if i can use that word, isis jihadi who has gone from belgium and back. He appears in the horrendous videos, making threats, performing the most unspeakable acts on tape. Fight a psychopath and has been connected, importantly now, connected with many other, thankfully foiled attacks in belgium and including, of course, that ak47 attempted spraying of a passenger train from brussels to paris in the summer. His intentions are clear. Hes proving elusive. Lets get back to the scene of this active operation. Atika shubert, youve been the fresh eyes, the first eyes on the situation throughout the night. Youve seen waves of activity. And now . Yes. Well, its officially over, the operation. The french Government Spokesperson has said that its over and that only Security Operations are under way. Now, this is right in the heart of old sebastiaintdenis. We see police units here, although it is much more relaxed. We just saw a plain clothed officer get out with a rifle and move around the church there. What is happening, these are Security Operations, clearing the area out of suspicious characters, anybody whos not supposed to be around here. The actual operation to apprehend those suspects appears to officially be over and just to recap, we have two of the suspects who died, seven suspects arrested. This is after a night of automatic gunfire and explosion, residents understandably are not only terrified whats happened but just think its absolutely surreal. So this is this is paris today, chris. The church bells are ringing where you are, police are tearing a hole in the door of another church. They may call that an operation being over but certainly activity is still ongoing. A lot about this is about where it goes from here, fred plietgen also on the scene. There are Police Officers moving away from the scene at this point in time. Theres a group in front thats standing with some firefighters there. The guys with the orange sort of bands around their arms are plain clothed Police Officers. Some of them wearing their Police Jackets now. The guys from the special Operations Forces do still be in place. It seems to us, though, chris, the situation down there, from what we can see, seems to be much, much more relaxed than it was about 45 minutes ago when at that point in time, they were Still Standing with their guns ready. It really does seem as atika was saying as though theres clearing operations going on. Theyre going through there. It does seem at this point in time that they are more relaxed. The front, however, there is still a cop there that seems to be securing a perimeter. Also with a rifle and with that riot gear and the flack vest on as well. They certainly are still very much in a mode where theyre securing the perimeter, still have a lot of forces on hand. They have a lot of ambulances, firefighters, still a lot of assets they have down here. Clearly if this operation is winding down, it seems to be winding down in a slow way. Its not like theyre moving out quickly. Seems like there is work going on in those places but from the Vantage Point we have here, which, again, is elevated so we can see down that road where those apartments appear to be, it seems to us as though its a lot more relaxed than it would have been about 30, 40 minutes ago. Chris . Understood within the context, fred, of course, there is a randomness to this. The officers went to one of these apartments for one reason, the search wound up being expanded, there wound up being violence. You never know whats going to happen. Stay safe. Stay on the scene and let us know what you see there. Jim, what do we know about how we arrived at this point . There was a break in the case. Including a message to the effect of lets get this operation started. Very important there were encryption apps on those phones. Allowing them to go work. Yes. I was told they were concerned this cell went dark and thats a reason they were able to stay under the radar screens. Possibly a key clue. What were seeing unfold today is Good Police Work. Were also watching the French Interior minister. Lets bring in Senior CorrespondentJim Bitterman, the interior minister walking up now. We believe hes going to give a statement. Take us through this. I think he probably will. This is what usually happens. The french are good about putting something out right away when something goes on. I expect hell have a few words to say. Were also supposed to hear in about a half hour from president hollande himself, who is addressing the mayors. And the mayors of france gathering the association of mayors gathering, 11,000 mayors. In france, the mayors have a different role than in the United States. They have policing powers, especially in smaller villages where there arent as many police. They have Police Forces in their own towns. The mayors are very important in getting the message out, providing security, that sort of thing. They will talk about the values of the republic and all that. I also suspect because of the events this morning, hell speak about what happened. When the french put out, as Jim Bitterman was saying, when the french officials come out, they have things it talk about. One other point, are you hearing what weve been hearing that this idea of these raids have been an awakening for the authorities, that they are discovering an intricacy of a network and criminality and terror framework in and around their midst they were not aware of. I think absolutely. After Charlie Hebdo the interior minister is speaking now. Well get a translation. Letslien in. Translator i would like to give my sincere congratulations of the Police Involved in the raid who intervened in an extremely courageous way in the framework of this operation. Who worked for numerous hours in conditions they had never met up until now. I would also like to congratulation the inhabitants. I would like to say to them, throughout this operation they respected the advice given by the police and the local actors which contributed to the success in this operation. Clearly, we during the coming days and the inquiry well have to pursue the action that were carrying out in the fight against terrorism. Id like to immediately give the floor to the to the prosecutor. Id like to make a few observations. Ive expressed myself more clearly in the second part of the afternoon. We need to understand that people could not go inside the building. This was within the judicial framework of friday night following the criminal terrorist attacks that took place in paris, saintdenis. Theres been lots of work thats been carried out which made it possible to obtain surveillance and testimonies which made it possible to think that the name abaaoud was likely to be in a flat in saintdenis with these eleme elements. This operation that was unleashed this night with the shootings that were described by the minister first of all with the intention of three people who were in the flat, secondly, by the explosion of a young woman who was still there who exploded herself by exploding a charge and then another terrorist was then found and was then killed by projectiles and grenades. Two people were then detained who were trying to hide and two other people were then detained, the one who provided the accommodation and their acquaintance. It is impossible to give you the identities of the people at the moment while these identifications and checks taking place, everything will be done to find out who is and these police and technical examinations and what the consequences can be drawn from the development of these investigations. Thank you. All right. We were just hearing the prosecutor give a breakdown of what was going on. You have to remember, if youre just joining us right now, it has looked like a war zone in this french neighborhood of saintdenis outside paris for the last several hours. Police acting on information that the planner of the attacks on friday may have been in an apartment in this community. They launched a massive operation. There were explosions, there was gunfire, terrorists have been killed. At least two are being reported. Many have been arrested. Officers have been injured. This was about jim sciutto, two apartments on the same street that led to what were being the discovery of a second terror team. Three headlines. It was just in the nick of time. They believe by getting in there at the time they did they prevented another deadly attack on the streets of paris. Two, as you heard the French Police just saying right there, they believe the mastermind of these attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud was going to be in that apartment. As it turned out he was not. Third, something weve been talking about for the last hour or so, you heard kaznov there, the several phones they foned in effect that led them to another cell. That was a remarkable lead in this investigation. Made a real different today. Four people have been detained in this apartment raiding, including the owner, the renter, the person who the apartment belonged to. Cnn producer, Scott Brownstein has confirmed that the raids focused on two separate apartments on the same street. The raid from one of them led to the raid on the second one. Pressure is on the interior minister. He has been in the forefront ever since Charlie Hebdo. Theres been a repeated terrorist incident and every time he takes the heat. Hes out there with his prosecutor, and the two of them have a lot of responsibility for protecting french. Im sure he feels its a good idea to be out there this morning. Theres a big emerging plus minus in this situation. There is a state of emergency. Its increased police power, led to more raids in places they ordinarily wouldnt go. The negative is as the fruit of those raids, they have developed an understanding of whats being described to us as a spider web network, almost an infestation of potential terror targets leading them to a second team of what it seems, jim sciutto, of at least manpower, firepower and explosive power to the teams that launched the attacks on friday. Parallels here are coop. We heard of eight attackers, isis said. Police identified seven. You have nine people in this area, in these apartments, same size. There was one suicide vest as we know from the police, several automatic weapons. It has many parallels to that first cell. Ill tell you, weve talked a lot since the attacks happened. People ask the question are we in a different phase now, has something changed, et cetera . We are, no question. But part of that, police have more power. Theyre not going to leave anything to chance. Theyre going to go on a hunch. Theyre not going to wait for a crime to be committed. They have the power to do that. They are saying, according to our producer, actually as weve been reporting this morning, this Apartment Building, this residential location was under surveillance since yesterday. When they found the phones. They didnt just turn up there at 4 30 in the morning. Theyve been watching those apartments. Good, they were under surveillance, found this other team. The bad part, lets go to Paul Cruickshank at our parry bureau. We report this with accuracy but hesitanc hesitancy. The authorities and those with knowledge of the investigations say they have no reason to believe, paul, there couldnt be a third team or even a fourth team. They have no idea of the extent of the number of people theyre up against or the imminency of their intentions. Is that fair to say . I think its fair to say theres a significant amount of concern from security on the list, people who know how isis operates. There could be several attack teams now. The fact there were two suggests they wanted to launch a first attack on friday. And then when the world media descend on paris to launch another spectacular attack, which, of course, would be even more traumatic potentially for france and get even more attention for the isis cause worldwide, i think its significant that we are learning the way they managed to figure out the potentially Abdelhamid Abaaoud was at this apartment, that it was from the cell phones, according to the interior minister. Also surveillance and testimony that theyve got from people, maybe stuff they have from the interrogation. Theyre learning crucial pieces of information which is allowing them to get a better handle on this threat. At this hour, it is still not clear what the fate of Abdelhamid Abaaoud is. The interior minister saying theyre still trying to work out who the people were that were killed in that raid. Chris . So were still learning some information. Something i dont think is incremental. Early on when we heard about the explosion, it was reported from authorities that there had been a female with an explosive vest and she had detonated it. Then there was push back. We dont know that she was wearing the vest. We know something exploded. Take us through, other than the obvious, which it wasnt a vest, it was something else, in terms of what theyre dealing with, about what they know about the potential that these teams have had on them. Well, i mean, with this information, chris, about a potential female suicide bomber, i mean, that points to the fact that there has been a very large number of women who have come from the west to join isis and other terrorist groups in syria and iraq. More than 500 western radicalized women have gone over and joined. Of course, the concern is, some of them look just like the men are coming back to europe and they can fly, perhaps, a little bit more under the radar screen. Theres been some concern for fight some time that women would be getting more involved and it would appear from what were hearing that this woman in some kind of fashion detonated some kind of explosive, killed herself in the process, chris. Were still trying to gather information exactly what went down. And also you know, the scene on your screens right now, also is strongly suggestive of how diverse this perceived threat is. You have forensics people, explosives people, military, police. Theres a lot of different types of assets because of two things, one, what has been discovered which is a team of at least equal number and equal capabilities has been discovered in a community outside paris in the preceding hours to this broadcast right now, there have been explosions. Theres been gunfire, at least two terrorists have been killed, several others have been detained. Officers have been hurt. That is what is known. Theres also a group of officers literally bashing a hole through a church door, all of this done on the suggestion that the planner of fridays attacks may not be in syria as was suspected but on a street in a Paris Community in an apartment. And thats what these raids were with. No word he was discovered here. Jim sciutto, this is not to cite incompetence. It is to cite the wave of developments of understanding by french authorities as theyre doing more and more raids. They are so overwhelmed with the number of terror suspects here. Maybe we speak about the incredible capability of this group were seeing here, that you could have the masterm