An anti-terror police dog has died after it was blown up by a female suicide bomber during a tense firefight with suspected ISIS militants behind the Paris attacks.
The seven-year-old Belgian Shepherd named Diesel was killed during a raid by up to 100 police and soldiers on a flat in the French capital this morning.
A witness said Diesel, who is trained to sniff out explosives, was blown to pieces when a jihadi bride came out firing her AK-47 at police before detonating her suicide vest.
Tributes quickly poured in to the respected canine, with one police handler saying: ‘It’s a little like losing one our colleagues.’
The official profile for Police Nationale tweeted that Diesel ‘was killed by terrorists in the current operation in Saint-Denis’.
The force said that ‘assault and explosives’ search dogs are indispensable to the work of the French anti-terror unit known as RAID.
More than 100 police and soldiers were involved in a gunfight with up to six suspected Paris terrorists holed up in the flat including the mastermind behind the atrocities.
The stand-off ended as a bloodied and half-naked suspect was dragged out of an apartment block through broken glass in Saint-Denis – close to the Stade de France.
