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|November 18, 2015 – A violent, 7-hour shootout erupted early this morning about 4:25 AM when French police assaulted the apartment hideout of suspected terrorists at 8c, Rue du Corbillon in the northern Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis.
The medal on the left is “La Médaille de la Défense nationale” (The National Defense Medal), awarded for particularly honorable service rendered by military personnel for participation in operational activities not involving combat with an enemy.
The medal on the right is “La Médaille commémorative française” (The French Commemorative Medal), awarded for service overseas.
In Diesel’s service history, this would be either in LIBYE in 2011 (for operations to protect Libyan and foreign civilians) in the revolution that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi during the “Arab Spring” of 2011 or in JORDANIE in 2012 (for operations to protect Syrian refugees and Jordanian civilians) on the Syrian-Jordanian border during the current Syrian civil war, that began during the “Arab Spring” of 2011, and still rages on to this day.
The ferocious gun battle, involving an extremely high volume of heavy weapons fire and powerful, high explosive detonations, resulted in the collapse of the third floor onto the second floor of the apartment building.
Diesel, a seven-year-old female Belgian Malinois Shepherd bomb sniffing police dog was killed during the assault.
Arriving at the massive, ongoing firefight with her RAID (Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion — Research, Assistance, Intervention, Deterrence) special operations tactical unit of the Police nationale française, Diesel, steady and sure of her duty, was first to enter the building about 5:00 AM, leading her team to sniff out booby traps.
Just inside the door of apartment 8c on the the third floor, Diesel was ‘blown to pieces’ in a hail of bullets.
The official French National Police press release stated simply that “Diesel, a seven-year-old Malinois, police dog for RAID [France’s anti-terrorist police unit], was killed by terrorists in the ongoing operation in Saint-Denis.”
Five French police officers were wounded, and three terrorists were killed in the firefight, including a woman suicide bomber, Hasna Ait Boulahcen, 26, who detonated her suicide vest at a third floor window at 9:00 AM, showering the street with body parts.
The woman’s head was blown into the street, and her spine landed on a police car.
She was a cousin of the suspected terrorist cell ringleader, Abdel Hamid Abaaoud, 27, who was shot in the head by a police sniper and then blown to pieces by numerous grenades.
The body of one other as yet unidentified woman terrorist was found in the rubble. At least eight other terrorists were arrested and taken into custody.
At 11:43 AM, the anti-terrorist operation was declared over.
French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, said the attackers had exploited the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe to “slip in” to France.
He warned that the European Union’s passport-free system would be “undermined” if European nations did not tighten security at their external borders.
The terrorist cell ringleader, Abdel Hamid Abaaoud, was able to pose as an asylum-seeking refugee without papers to move back and forth many times between the Islamic State controlled city of Raqqa, Syria, where the terrorist attacks on Paris were planned, to Brussels, Belgium, where the terrorist attacks were coordinated, to Paris itself, where the terrorist attacks were executed.
The November 18 raid on the terrorist hideout in Saint-Denis occurred during the intense manhunt for perpetrators of last Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris that resulted in the deaths of 130 people . . .
. . . and one heroic dog.
