Police race against time to catch jihadi women
A failed car bombing in the heart of Paris was hatched by a group of French women, including one once engaged to men who had already killed in the name of the Islamic State group, France’s top anti-terrorism prosecutor said yesterday.
The hunt to find the women, who authorities said were guided from Syria, had been ‘‘a race against time’’ before they could strike again, said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, overseeing the fight against militant extremists who have killed more than 200 people in France in the past 10 months.
The Thursday night (local time) arrests linked three attacks — the failed car bomb near Notre Dame Cathedral, the killing of two police near Paris in June, and the stabbing death of a French priest during Mass in July — and marked a new phase in the Islamic State group’s efforts to sow fear in Europe.
‘‘There’s a group that has been annihilated, but there are others,’’ said President Francois Hollande. ‘‘Information we were able to get from our intelligence services allowed us to act before it was too late.’’
The raid left one of the women shot in the leg and two police officers stabbed, authorities said.
‘‘In the last few days and hours, a terrorist cell was dismantled, composed of young women totally receptive to the deadly Daesh ideology,’’ said Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, using an Arabic acronym for the extremist group.
The group was ‘‘guided by individuals in Syria,’’ which showed that IS ‘‘means to turn women into fighters,’’ Molins said.
Police raced to find the suspects after the abandoned car was discovered before dawn on Sunday.
The Peugeot 607 — its hazard lights flashing — contained gas canisters, a blanket with traces of fuel, and a burned-out cigarette. No detonators were found.
Among three women arrested together Thursday was Ines Madani, a 19-year-old whose father owned the Peugeot, Molina said. Her written pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State was found by police, he added.
Also arrested in the raid was a 39-year-old woman, identified as Amel S., and her oldest daughter was detained in the suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois, authorities said. Another woman, arrested earlier in the week, also remained in custody.
One fiance, Larossi Abballa, killed two police officials in Magnanville in June and filmed the aftermath on Facebook Live before dying in a police raid, he said.
The other was Adel Kermiche, who slit the throat of the Rev Jacques Hamel, 85, during morning Mass in July in the northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-duRouvray, he added. Kermiche and another attacker were shot to death by police.