Body in Paris raid identified as cousin of attack 'mastermind'

A third body found in the rubble of an apartment raided by French police in the Saint Denis neighbourhood of Paris on Wednesday has been identified as the cousin of the Paris attacks' alleged 'mastermind', prosecutors said on Friday.

Twenty-six-year-old Hasna Aitboulahcen was initially believed to have blown herself up during the same raid in which 27-year-old Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian citizen of Moroccan descent and the alleged planner, was killed.

But a police source told the AFP news agency that the suicide bomber was now suspected to have been a second man. Investigators were still examining body parts to confirm the gender of the third suspect, the source said.

The French parliament on Friday approved a three-month extension to the state of emergency introduced following the attacks a week ago that gives police the power to conduct searches without judicial warrants and allowing anyone suspected of posing a threat to be placed under house arrest for 12 hours a day and electronically tagged.

The upper house of parliament, the Senate, voted 336 to 12 in favour of a bill passed by the lower house of parliament on Thursday.

An entire floor of the apartment building collapsed during Wednesday's police operation and French prosecutors have said it has been difficult to identify the bodies.

Armed police fired 5,000 rounds of ammunition and lobbed grenades into the building during the raid which prosecutors said was targeted at a group plotting further attacks to those a week ago in which 130 people died.

Seven people are thought to have carried out the attacks, all of whom were either killed by police or killed themselves with suicide vests. The attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

Police have been hunting this week for Abaaoud and Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old from Brussels who authorities said transported attackers to the Bataclan concert venue, where gunman shot dead at least 89 people. 

Abdeslam, who is wanted on an arrest warrant, was reportedly questioned and released by French officials near the Belgian border last Saturday, hours after the attacks.

Meanwhile, Belgium on Friday charged one suspect with involvement in terrorism over the Paris attacks and released one other as part of a separate investigation into suicide bomber Hadfi Bilal, prosecutors said.

"The person that was arrested yesterday has been charged by the investigating judge with participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organisation, and placed into custody," Belgium's federal prosecutor said in a statement.

The announcement came a day after Belgian police arrested nine people in Brussels during raids connected to last week's attacks with the charged suspect now the only remaining in custody from that roundup.