French police killed the two gunmen suspected of Wednesdays attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo while a third gunman died at a hostage scene in a kosher grocery store in Paris. Photo: Associated Press
Amedy Coulibaly, aged 32, is believed to be the boyfriend of Hayat Boumeddiene. Pic: Direction centrale de la Police judiciaire via Getty Images. Source: Getty Images
THIS is the most wanted woman in Paris — the missing link in a tangled web of terrorism and blood that could help authorities unravel a sinister jihadist murder spree.
Hayat Boumeddiene is a suspected accomplice on the run after an earlier hostage-taking siege at a Kosher grocery store in Porte de Vincennes, a neighborhood in eastern Paris.
Boumeddiene, 26, was believed to be the girlfriend of Amedy Coulibaly, 32, who was killed by police during the siege at the store on Friday.
Pictures have emerged on social media of the many faces of Hayat.
Her mugshot is now globally recognised, but there are other images showing a more brutal side.
French publication Le Monde released a series of pictures of Boumeddiene and Coulibaly, sporting weaponry.
Boumeddiene is seen clothed in a burka pointing a crossbow at the camera.
In complete contrast, another image depicts the couple enjoying time in the sun together, with Boumeddiene in a bikini.
Hayat Boumeddiene. One of the four terrorist involved in the Paris attacks. Source: TWITTER @rConflictNews Source: Twitter
Amedi Coulibaly & Hayat Boumeddiene. Two of the four terrorist involved in the Paris attacks. Source: TWITTER @rConflictNews Source: Twitter
HOSTAGE: 'I WAS SPARED FOR BEING A WOMAN'
CHARB'S GIRLFRIEND: 'I KNEW HE WOULD BE ASSASSINATED'
TIMELINE OF TERROR: FRANCE ROCKED BY THREE DAYS OF TERRORISM
On the run. Hayat Boumeddiene. Photo by Direction centrale de la Police judiciaire via Getty Images. Source: Getty Images
French police special forces launching the assault at a kosher grocery store. AFP PHOTO/AFPTV/GABRIELLE CHATELAIN Source: AFP
An alert had earlier been issued for both Coulibaly and Boumeddience who were being sought in connection with the murder of policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe in Paris on Thursday.
Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27, had been at a traffic incident in Montrouge when she was shot dead.
That shooting was just a day after the brutal slaying of staff at French magazine Charlie Hebdo. The shootings were believed to be linked.
Two brothers suspected of attacking the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were killed when police stormed their hideout, and at least four other hostages had been killed at a separate siege at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris. Jillian Kitchener reports.
The links
Coulibaly was shot dead during a siege at a Jewish store in Paris, part of an horrific day of events in Paris, where two separate sieges took place at different locations.
At the Kosher grocery store near the Porte de Vincennes neighbourhood in Paris, Coulibay burst in shooting people just a few hours before the Jewish Sabbath began, declaring "You know who I am," an official recounted.
A screen grab of a man escaping with a child from a kosher grocer during a Paris seige. Pic: Supplied. Source: Supplied
Several people were wounded when the gunman opened fire, but were able to flee and get medical care.
It is believed Coulibaly had made threats to kill hostages if Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, identified as the men behind the killings at Charlie Hebdo, were harmed by police.
The two brothers, around 40km away, were holed up as police surrounded them at a printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris.
Boumeddiene and Coulibaly had been in a relationship since 2010, according to telegraph.co.uk.
Blasts, gunfire reported as police engaged with the alleged gunmen behind the Charlie Hebdo attack in a printing facility north of Paris. Shots were also heard at the second hostage site at a kosher market in Paris. Photo: AFP/Getty
She is believed to have waited for him to be released from prison for four years and he later lived with her in a Paris suburb, telegraph.co.uk reports.
Coulibaly was part of the Buttes-Chaumont terrorist network that recruited young men to send to Iraq in the early 2000s.
The Kouachi brothers were part of the same network.
A web of terror
Boumeddiene's boyfriend, Amedi Coulibaly, grew up in a world of high crime, drugs and poverty.
The 33-year-old was born in the rough neighbourhood of Juvisy-sur-Orge, in Essonne, and grew up in the nearby town of Grigny, in the district of Grande Borne.
It was an area where more than 40 per cent of the population was unemployed – including Coulibaly.
He was a man who had nothing to lose.
Coulibaly was the seventh – and the only boy – in a family of 10 children and quickly developed the profile of a criminal offender.
Amedy Coulibaly, aged 32, was killed during a siege in Paris, Pic: Direction centrale de la Police judiciaire via Getty Images. Source: Getty Images
Amedi Coulibaly & Hayat Boumeddiene. Two of the four terrorist involved in the Paris attacks. Source: TWITTER @rConflictNews Source: Twitter
In 2002 he was sentenced to six years prison in a court for minors for a robbery.
Miraculously, after his release, he later found work at a nearby Coca-Cola where he stayed from 2008 and 2009. But he would later see himself in and out of work on the production line, racking up more criminal convictions in the same period.
By 2010 he had eight convictions, including aggravated theft, drug trafficking and receiving.
Over time he was radicalised.
But he was not the only one approached by terrorism recruiters. Le Monde reports that in 2010, government reports showed there were several radical groups in the area, including the Takfir movement.
A screengrab taken from an AFP TV video shows members of the French police special forces launching the assault at a kosher grocery store in Porte de Vincennes, eastern Paris. AFP PHOTO / AFPTV / GABRIELLE CHATELAIN Source: AFP
Coulibaly, along with the Kouachi brothers visited Djamel Beghal, in a town called Murate, on a regular basis, while he was under house arrest, Le Monde reports.
Beghal was a convicted terrorist, a French Algerian, who confessed to an attempt to blow up a US embassy in Paris.
He was believed to have links to Osama bin Laden.
A French government organisation charged with investigating the group, suspected the cell was plotting to help a terrorist to escape prison.
The investigation led to Coulibaly being placed in jailed for four years.
And waiting on the outside for him was his girlfriend, Hayat Boumeddiene.
The brothers behind Charlie Hebdo killings
In contrast, Said Kouachi, 34, and his younger brother Cherif, 32, who were shot and killed by police after an horrific attack on staff at the magazine Charlie Hebdo, were orphans.
They were born in Paris and grew up at an orphanage in the city of Rennes, not far from the site of Charlie Hebdo's office.
Both brothers were known to police, were on a US database of terror suspects and were on a no-fly list.
The moment police storm the Hypercacher supermarket in the Porte de Vincennes, Paris - Storyful
They are believed to have been linked to jihadist networks for over a decade.
Older brother Said was known by French intelligence to have travelled to Yemen in 2011 where he is believed to have received weapons training from a local al-Qaeda affiliate.
He spent time at Al-Imam University two years earlier and was "disciplined, calm and discreet", a former friend in Yemen told AP.
Younger brother Cherif worked at a supermarket, listened to rap music and was a member a group of radical young Muslims knows as the Buttes Chaumont network, named after a park in Paris where members lived.
He also wanted to be a rapper himself.
Cherif Kouachi worked a sports teacher and pizza deliveryman and appeared in a 2005 French TV documentary on Islamic extremism.
He was arrested in 2005 attempting to fly to Syria, from where he was expected to travel to Iraq.
His lawyer at the time said he was not particularly religious.
He was put on trial in 2008 where he said he was spurred to act by the abuse of detainees by US troops at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.
He was later sentenced to three years in prison but only served half of that time.
In prison he met Coulibaly and Beghal.
Journal du Dimanche newspaper, citing a transcript from a police interview in 2010, is reporting that Coulibaly identified Cherif Kouachi as a friend he had met in prison and said they saw each other frequently.
Originally published as Hunt for Hayat: Where is she?
