France pursues female suspect after deadly sieges

Police describes Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, as 'armed and dangerous'

PARIS: France has launched a massive hunt for the female accomplice of militants behind attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish deli.

The whereabouts of the partner of the Jewish deli attacker, 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, remained unknown on Saturday. Police listed her as a suspect in that strike and an earlier killing of a policewoman, describing her as ‘armed and dangerous’.

“All our services are focused on looking for this person,” national police chief Jean-Marc Falcone told BFM-TV television. “We call on her to put herself in the hands of justice.”

An official police photograph shows a young woman with long dark hair hitched back over her ears.

French media, however, released photos purporting to be of a fully-veiled Boumeddiene, posing with a cross-bow, in what they said was a 2010 training session in the mountainous Cantal region of southern France. A source familiar with the situation said she left France last week and traveled to Syria via Turkey.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2015.