Paris: Amidst tight security following the terror attack, the suspected female accomplice of the Islamist militant involved in the fatal hostage crisis in Kosher supermarket is believed to be in Syria after 'crossing the border to Spain and flying from Madrid to Istanbul', despite alleged sightings of her in Paris on Thursday, media reports stated on Saturday.
It is believed that the Islamic State militants control a large part of Syria.
According to reports, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is the partner of Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a policewoman on Thursday and then took four hostages at the Kosher supermarket yesterday.
As per reports in Daily Mail, authorities in Istanbul reported seeing a woman matching Boumeddiene's description cross the Turkey-Syria border on Thursday, the day Amedy Coulibaly killed policewoman Clarissa Jean-Phillipe.
However, Coulibaly was shot dead, while Boumeddiene was believed to have managed to escape.
Coulibaly killed four hostages during the siege. Authorities were then hunting for Coulibay's partner Boumeddiene, who was said to be "armed and dangerous."
The photo -- first published by Le Monde -- contrasts with the one French police issued in its public appeal to locate her following the bloody events of Friday, when Coulibaly was killed by police commandos after he took hostages in a Jewish supermarket in Paris.
The mugshot provided by the police shows a sleepy-eyed young woman, her face and brown hair showing, whom they had questioned in 2010 about Coulibaly.
She is suspected of being Coulibaly`s accomplice in the murder of a policewoman in southern Paris on Thursday, during a massive manhunt for two brothers who a day earlier massacred 12 people at the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
Police also suspect she might have been involved in Coulibaly`s supermarket hostage-taking, though she was not identified among the dead or wounded.
However, praising the Paris massacre today, supporters of extremist Islamic groups extolled the suspects as "lions of the caliphate" and praised the killings on social media, as per reports.
Adding to it, al Qaeda's branch in Yemen said that it directed Wednesday's attack against the publication Charlie Hebdo. Loyalists of Qaeda and the Islamic State group alike described the assault on Hebdo's offices as revenge for the French satirical publication's mockery of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and France's military involvement in Muslim countries.
Both al Qaeda and the Islamic State group potentially stand to benefit from the bloodshed.
France, however, has deployed thousands of security forces to thwart new attacks and hunt down a suspected accomplice in a rampage by terrorists linked to al Qaeda in Yemen that scarred the nation after the killing of 17 people in terror strikes.
(With Agency Input)
