Prime Minister Manuel Valls says France is under a “long and permanent threat” after attacks in Paris claimed at least 129 lives last week.
Speaking on French TV on Thursday night, Valls said he “owes the truth” to the French people, stressing that investigators don’t know whether there are other extremist cells that are still “active. It’s probable.”
Valls added that police have conducted 600 raids targeting Islamic extremists since the attacks on a rock concert, Parisian cafes and France’s national stadium.
Valls also said French authorities don’t know if Salah Abdeslam, a fugitive wanted in connection with the attacks, is still in France.
France has circulated a U.N. Security Council draft resolution that calls on all countries to “redouble and coordinate their efforts” to prevent further attacks by Islamic State and similar groups and “eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria.”
The text, seen by The Associated Press, also condemns the recent attacks by IS — which include the Paris attacks that killed 129 people — and urges countries to “intensify their efforts to stem the flow of foreign terrorist fighters to Iraq and Syria.”
Britain, which holds the council presidency, told reporters Thursday that it will prepare a vote on the draft as soon as France wants.
Diplomats are indicating that a separate Russian draft resolution seeking to unite countries against IS will not go forward.
The Paris prosecutor’s office says the eight people detained Wednesday in a police raid that killed the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks will stay in custody for at least another day.
Police searching for Belgian extremist Abdelhamid Abaaoud stormed an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis on Wednesday, killing Abaaoud. A woman there also was killed when she blew herself up with a suicide belt, investigators said.
Authorities said five men in the apartment building were taken into custody, and a woman and two other men, including the man whose apartment was used as the cell’s hideout, were arrested on a nearby street.
Under French law, officials can detain suspects for up to 96 hours without charges.
Image from: bbc.co.uk
