As world’s most wanted woman, Hayat Boumeddiene is the subject of manhunt of every intelligence service in the world,looking for clues to find her . The last known whereabouts of Boumeddiene was in Turkey where she crossed from France a day before the attacks last week on French Satire Magazine Charlie Hebdo. Boumeddiene is now thought to be Syria where she possibly is taking a refuge from the worldwide manhunt for her involvement in the Paris attacks.
Before she became entangled in one of France’s worst acts of terrorism in 50 years, the 26 years old Hayat Boumeddiene was just a young woman who grew up in a broken home and worked as cashier at a local Parisian grocery story.
Boumeddiene who hails from an Algerian background was one of seven children of French Algerian family when her mother died in 1994 and her father later dropped out of her life when she was just 8 years old. The father left her and the other young siblings for the social agencies to take care of them. Her oldest siblings, however, left the family to live on their own. In this respect, Boumeddiene was an ordinary non religious girl before she met and married her husband Amedy Couibaly in 2009 and who later killed 4 hostages in Jewish Kosher store in Paris.
Although the information about the transformation of young Boumeddiene from a young struggling woman into a weapons-trained wife of a jihadist is still sketchy, it is clear, however from the known information published by the French press that Boumeddiene was a committed Jihadist and now on the run and possibly in Syria.
Although initial press reports said that Boumeddiene was with her husband during the attack on the Jewish shop, but the police later said that she was not there during the hostage situation. Meanwhile Turkish authorities reported that Boumeddiene flew into Turkey coming from Madrid, Spain on the 9th of January, the same day the brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi attacked the French newspaper Charlie Hebedo, The Turkish authorities also said that Boumeddiene carried a round trip ticket to Madrid, and later said that its intelligence has reported Boumeddiene had crossed the borders into Syria.
The French Police later said that its surveillance operations recorded 500 phone calls between Boumeddiene and Ezana Hamid the wife of Cherif Kouachi which indicate deeper ties between the two couples and possibly show that Boumeddiene was part of the planning of the terrorist attacks. It is reported; moreover that the couple also visited British based Djamel Beghal along with Cherif Kouachi. Beghal ,50 is an extremist Jihadist leader who worshipped at Finsburry Park Mosque has met Cherif Kouchi while in prison in Paris.
Neighbors of the couple said that Boumeddiene and her husband was a normal couple, respectful and religiously devout. They disappeared from their residence a month ago before they turned up during the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Kosher supermarket in Paris.
Source: Al Jazeera, agencies
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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