Police in hunt for widow of market gunman
Print Edition
FRANCE’S government urged the nation to remain vigilant yesterday, as thousands of security forces try to thwart new attacks and hunt down a suspected accomplice in a rampage by terrorists linked to al-Qaida in Yemen that scarred the nation and left 20 people dead.
Three attackers were among those killed after three days of bloodshed at the offices of a satirical magazine, a kosher supermarket and other sites around Paris.
But the sense of relief yesterday was tinged with worry and sorrow, as the nation mourned slain hostages and cartoonists.
Security forces were deployed around the capital, guarding places of worship and tourist sites, and preparing for what’s likely to be a huge demonstration today to show unity against extremists. Two dozen world leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s David Cameron are among the many expected to join.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said authorities will do everything to ensure security at the event.
Speaking after an emergency meeting called by French President Francois Hollande yesterday morning, Cazeneuve called for “extreme vigilance,” saying that “given the context, we are exposed to risks.”
Al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen said it directed Wednesday’s attack against the publication Charlie Hebdo to avenge the honor of the Prophet Muhammad, a frequent target of the weekly’s satire.
In a sign of the tense atmosphere, a security perimeter was briefly imposed at Disneyland Paris yesterday before being lifted, a spokeswoman said, without elaborating.
Cazeneuve said the government is maintaining its terror alert system at the highest level in the Paris region, and said investigators are focusing on determining whether the attackers were part of a larger extremist network.
Five other people are in custody and family members of the attackers are among several given preliminary charges.
French radio RTL yesterday released audio of the attacker who seized hostages in the kosher supermarket, Amedy Coulibaly, in which he lashes out over Western military campaigns against extremists in Syria and Mali. He describes Osama bin Laden as an inspiration.
One of his hostages said on France 2 TV yesterday that the gunman told them: “Me, I’m not scared of dying. Either I die, or I get a 40-year prison sentence.”
The focus of the police hunt is on Coulibaly’s widow, Hayat Boumeddiene. Police said she was an accomplice and think she is armed.
“You must consider her as the companion of a dangerous terrorist who needs to be questioned,” said Christophe Crepin, a police spokesman.
“Since 2010, she has had a relationship with an individual whose ideology translates into violence and the execution of poor people who were just doing their shopping.”
Jewish groups planned a vigil after sundown yesterday to mourn the four people killed at the kosher market.
In the Mideast and in some quarters of France, loyalists of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group extolled the attackers on Charlie Hebdo as “lions of the caliphate.” They described the attack as revenge for the French satirical publication’s mockery of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and France’s military involvement in Muslim countries.
The two brothers behind the attack on the magazine, Said and Cherif Kouachi, were known to authorities: One had a terrorism-related conviction for ties to a network sending fighters to battle American forces in Iraq, and both were on the United States no-fly list.
This week’s drama, played out on live TV and social media, began with the brothers massacring 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices on Wednesday.
They were cornered on Friday at a printing house in Dammartin-en-Goele, prompting a daylong standoff with police.
Coulibaly shot dead a policewoman on Thursday, before attacking the market on Friday, threatening more violence unless police let the Kouachis go.
It all ended at dusk on Friday with near-simultaneous raids at the printing plant and market. As security forces surrounded both sites, explosions, gunfire and smoke heralded the news that the sieges had ended.
The three gunmen were dead, but police also discovered four dead hostages at the market — killed, prosecutors said, by Coulibaly. Sixteen hostages were freed, one from the printing plant and 15 from the store.
Witnesses struggled to come to terms with what happened.
“Yesterday there was the shock effect. Today we wake up feeling a little bit bizarre,” said Thierry Claudet, a resident of Dammartin-en-Goele.
“I think we need a bit of time to digest all of what happened.”
People continued to pile flowers and notes on a monument to the Charlie Hebdo victims.
“They wanted to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds. Mexican proverb,” read one note.
A member of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula gave a statement in English saying the group’s leadership “directed the operations and they have chosen their target carefully.”
According to a Yemeni security official, Said Kouachi is suspected of having fought for al-Qaida in Yemen. Another senior security official said Said was in Yemen until 2012.
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