Women in Terror Cell Were Guided

by ISIS, Paris Prosecutor Says

By AURELIEN BREEDENSEPT. 9, 2016

PARIS A terrorist cell made up mainly of radicalized young

Frenchwomen has been dismantled by security forces, the Paris prosecutor
said on Friday, after a car filled with gas canisters was found last week in the
heart of Paris.

The prosecutor, Franois Molins, whose office handles domestic terrorism

investigations, said that the women had been guided remotely from Syria by
the Islamic State group, and that they had links to assailants in previous
terrorist attacks in France.

One of the women had even been engaged to be married to two assailants,
the killer of two police officers in June and the killer of a priest in July, he
said.

Mr. Molins said the use of a terrorist cell made up almost entirely of young
women represented a chilling turn in the Islamic States tactics.

If at first it appeared that women were confined to family and domestic

chores by the Daesh terrorist organization, it must be noted that this view is
now completely outdated, Mr. Molins, using an Arabic acronym for the
Islamic State, said at a news conference on Friday in Paris.

Though the car with the gas canisters had not been rigged to explode, Mr.
Molins said, there were signs that it was meant to catch fire. The police found
a blanket with traces of fuel and a cigarette butt in the car, a Peugeot 607
sedan, he said.

This commandos goal was clearly to carry out an attack, Mr. Molins said,
adding that French intelligence had gathered information pointing to an
imminent attack on Thursday.

Seven people were in custody on Friday in connection with the case; five of
them were women, including three who were arrested on Thursday in
Boussy-Saint-Antoine, a small town about 20 miles southeast of Paris. Mr.
Molins described the women as totally receptive to Islamic State
propaganda and he suggested that they may have met one another online.

He identified one of the women as Ines M., the 19-year-old daughter of the
owner of the Peugeot, which was found near Notre Dame Cathedral. Mr.
Molins said that when she was arrested, Ines M. had the keys to the car in her
bag, as well as a written pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State and its
leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

In the pledge, Ines M. wrote that she was answering the call of al-Adnani,
referring to Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a senior Islamic State figure who had
called on Muslims in the West to carry out attacks. Mr. Adnani was reported
killed in Syria last month.

Mr. Molins said the Peugeot contained fingerprints and DNA linked to
Ornella G., 29, who was arrested with her boyfriend earlier in the week.
Another couple arrested earlier in the week have been released, Agence
France-Presse reported.

A figure who appears to be central to the case, Sarah H., 23, was arrested in
Boussy-Saint-Antoine with Ines M. and a third woman, Amel S. (19) a
resident of the town.

Mr. Molins said that Sarah H. was known by intelligence services to be

particularly linked to the jihadi movement. He said she had formerly been
betrothed to Larossi Abballa, the killer of the two police officers
inMagnanville in June, and to Adel Kermiche, one of the men who killed a
priest in Normandy in July.

Mr. Molins did not specify how long Sarah H. had been linked to either man,
and did not say whether she had even met them in person. Each was shot
dead by the police during the attacks.

Mr. Molins did say that Sarah H. had been about to enter into a religious
marriage with a third man, Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, 22. Mr. Aberouzs
brother was close to Mr. Abballa and was detained after the killings in
Magnanville.

Mr. Molins said the police located the three women using mobile phone
records and other data. When an unmarked police car arrived on Thursday at
the apartment building where Amel S. lived, he said, officers saw Sarah H.,
Ines M. and Amel S. coming out. He added that Sarah H. was fully veiled but
that Ines M. wore a baseball cap.

By his account, Sarah H., after pausing in the parking lot, ran toward the
police car and lunged through the open window with an eight-inch kitchen
knife, wounding one officer in the shoulder. As the three women tried to flee,
Ines M. also lunged at an officer with a knife, he said, and the officer shot her
in the leg.

After the three were arrested, a search of Amel S.s apartment found seven
empty glass bottles with what appeared to be homemade paper fuses, the
prosecutor said. Amel S.s 15-year-old daughter, who he said was likely to be
involved in the terrorist project, was arrested on Friday morning, north of
Paris.

President Franois Hollande praised the work of the French intelligence and
security forces on Friday, but warned that there were sure to be other groups
still plotting attacks.

Before the discovery of the Peugeot early on Sunday, Mr. Molins was already
expressing concerns about the growing number of women involved in
terrorism. He noted in an interview with Le Monde last week that the
authorities had already lodged preliminary terrorism-related charges against
59 women in France, and that the hundreds of Frenchwomen who have gone
to Syria may return one day with plans to conduct terrorism.

These past months, we have seen an acceleration in the number of cases

involving young, minor girls, with profiles that are very worrisome, and
personalities that are very harsh, Mr. Molins said. Sometimes they are
behind terrorist plots that, on an intellectual level, are starting to be very
developed.