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French police arrest man in connection with Paris attacks

Police arrest 29-year-old in the Paris region over attacks last month, while two others are being held in connection with the Charlie Hebdo massacre
France imposed a state of emergency after the Paris attacks last month (AFP)

A 29-year-old man has been arrested as part of an investigation into last month's attacks on Paris that left 130 dead, while two others are being held in connection with the Charlie Hebdo massacre in February.

Judicial sources told the AFP news agency that the 29-year-old was arrested in the Paris region on Tuesday, but provided no further details.

Police have used national state of emergency powers to conduct 2,700 raids and place 360 people under house arrest since the Islamic State group's attacks last month. 

Two other men are in custody accused of providing accommodation to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader who was killed in a major police raid in northern Paris five days after the attacks.

Eight men have been arrested in Belgium, where the attacks are thought to have been organised, and one man has been detained in Turkey on suspicion of scouting the concert hall, bars and restaurants where the attacks took place.

But three of the nine attackers have yet to be identified, including two of the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside the Stade de France stadium, who appear to have used fake passports to sneak into Europe posing as refugees.

The other unidentified man is thought to have taken part in the gun attacks on the terraces of restaurants and bistros and died alongside Abaaoud in the shootout with police on 18 November.

Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French citizen thought to have played a key logistical role, is wanted on an international arrest warrant.

Hebdo arrests

In the Charlie Hebdo investigation, the Paris prosecutor's office told the AP news agency that those held were arrested on suspicion of helping provide guns to Amedy Coulibaly, the man who killed four people in a kosher supermarket in January in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack.

The AFP said the prosecutor's office named one of those arrested as Claude Hermant, 52, and said he had links to a far-right organisation. He was charged with arms trafficking earlier this year.

Investigators believe an assault rifle and four Tokarev hand guns found in the arsenal of Coulibaly, may have been sourced from Hermant.

A total of seven people have been charged with providing weapons or vehicles to Coulibaly. All deny any knowledge he was planning an attack.

Seventeen people died in three days of attacks around Paris carried out by Coulibaly and brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi. The three attackers were killed by police on 9 January.

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