PARIS – As many as six members of a terrorist cell involved in the Paris attacks may still be at large, including a man who was seen driving a car registered to the widow of one of the gunmen, police officials said Monday.
Two French police officials also told The Associated Press that authorities were searching the Paris area for the Mini Cooper registered to Hayat Boumeddiene, the widow of Amedy Coulibaly. Turkish officials say she is now in Syria.
The disclosures came as France deployed 10,000 troops to protect sensitive sites – including Jewish schools and neighborhoods – in the wake of the attacks last week that killed 17 people last week. Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, as well as Coulibaly, their friend who claimed ties to Islamic extremists in the Middle East, died Friday in clashes with police.
One of the police officials said the cell consisted of about 10 members, and that “five or six could still be at large.” He did not provide their names.
The other said the network was made up of about eight people and included Boumeddiene.
One of the other men believed to be part of the network has been seen driving Boumeddiene’s car around Paris in recent days, the two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation with the media. They cautioned that it was not clear whether the driver was an operative, involved in logistics, or some other, less violent role in the cell.
One of the officials also said Coulibaly apparently set off a car bomb Thursday in the town of Villejuif but that it did not receive significant media attention at the time because no one was injured.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the manhunt is urgent because “the threat is still present” after the attacks that began Wednesday with 12 people killed at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo by gunmen the police identified as the Kouachi brothers.
U.S. says it erred on anti-terror march
WASHINGTON – In a rare admission of error, the White House said Monday that President Barack Obama or another high-level representative should have joined dozens of world leaders at an anti-terror rally in Paris.
While leaders from Europe, the Middle East and Africa linked arms for Sunday’s march through the boulevards of Paris, the United States was represented by its ambassador to France. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris for security meetings but did not attend the march.
“It’s fair to say we should have sent someone with a higher profile,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. The administration also announced that Secretary of State John Kerry, who was on a long-planned trip to India Sunday, will visit France later this week.
The White House appeared to have been caught off guard by both the scope of international representation at the rally and by the criticism of the decision to send only Ambassador Jane Hartley. Monday’s admission of error seemed aimed at blunting criticism that the decision was tone deaf or disrespectful of the longstanding U.S. alliance with France.
Before the White House acknowledged its misstep, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said the administration had made a mistake by not at least sending Holder or Kerry to attend the Sunday rally.
Some Obama administration officials, too, privately expressed frustration that a high-level U.S. representative did not participate in the march.
