French law enforcement officers have been told to erase their social media presence and to carry their weapons at all times because terror sleeper cells have been activated over the last 24 hours in the country, a French police source who attended a briefing Saturday told CNN terror analyst Samuel Laurent.
Amedy Coulibaly, a suspect killed Friday during a deadly kosher market hostage siege, had made several phone calls about targeting police officers in France, according to the source.
It was one of a flurry of developments Saturday, including reporting in a French-language magazine that brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi had been under watch by the French, but despite red flags, authorities there lost interest in them.
The alert came amid word that the lone remaining suspect wanted in connection with a terrorism spree --Hayat Boumeddiene -- entered Turkey on January 2, a Turkish prime ministry source told CNN.
Boumeddiene was tracked by Turkish authorities to a location near the Turkey-Syria border, according to an official in the Turkish Prime Minister's office.
Boumeddiene arrived at the Istanbul airport on a flight from Madrid with a man. During routine screening of passengers, the couple were flagged by Turkey's Risk Assessment Center and a decision made to maintain surveillance on their movements, the official said. The official in the Turkish Prime Minister's office would not elaborate as to when Boumeddiene was tracked to the border province.
That means Boumeddiene may not have been in France at the time of Thursday's deadly shooting of a policewoman in Paris, as authorities originally believed. Authorities offered no immediate explanation of the discrepancy, but have said she is wanted in connection with a terrorist attack.
French authorities on Saturday asked security officials in Spain to look into the possibility that she transited through Spain on her way to Turkey, a source close to the Spanish officials said.
France will remain at a heightened security as investigations continue, Cazeneuve said after an emergency security meeting.
All necessary measures will also be taken to ensure the safety of people who attend a massive unity rally planned in Paris on Sunday, he said. Extra steps will also be taken to protect religious institutions.
A total of 1,100 French troops are currently deployed in the Paris region, alongside police forces, to increase security following the attacks, the Defense Ministry said. An additional 250 soldiers will be on duty Sunday for the march, the ministry said.
Altogether, nearly 1,900 French troops will take part in providing additional security across the country as part of the France's security alert system, known as Vigipirate.
The precautions may help to ease the nerves of a country left on edge by the wave of violence.
Over a million are expected to gather in Paris this afternoon for a rally in support of the victims of recent terrorist attacks in the French capital, who include four Jews murdered by an Islamist gunman in a kosher market Friday. Stay tuned to The Times of Israel liveblog for breaking developments.
The unofficial slogan of Sunday’s rally in the French capital is printed on a large balloon flying over the gathered masses: “Je suis Charlie, flic, juif” — “I am Charlie, a cop, a Jew.”
Culture ministers from all 28 European Union nations vowed Sunday to defend freedom of expression from “terrorists” in the wake of the Islamist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
In a statement as a huge unity rally took place in Paris, the ministers said the “senseless barbarity” of the attack aimed to undermine European values “in the most violent way.”
“We, the ministers of culture of the European Union, stand in solidarity to defend the freedom of expression and vow to protect the rights of artists to create freely,” said the statement, issued by the current Latvian presidency of the EU.
The ministers said they “do not accept terrorists’ attempts to impose their own standards. Since time immemorial, the arts have been an inspiration for reflection giving rise to new ideas and fighting against intolerance and ignorance.”
The EU’s top officials and a host of leaders from European nations are attending the rally in Paris to show solidarity after three days of violence in Paris in which 17 people died, including the Charlie Hebdo attack and a siege at a kosher supermarket.
Forty-four foreign dignitaries, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are heading out of the Elysee Palace en route to the rally in honor of those murdered in last week’s terrorist attacks, and will march behind the families of the 17 victims.
Hundreds of thousands, meanwhile, have packed into the Republic Square. Approximately 2,000 police offices and over 1,350 soldiers have been deployed to the area to protect the crowds.
World Leaders Gather For Paris March
Arson At German Paper That Reprinted Charlie Hebdo Cartoons
Nobody was hurt in the attack, police say. The newspaper said there were no people inside the building when the attack happened.
Arson At German Paper That Reprinted Charlie Hebdo Cartoons
A German newspaper, the Hamburger Morgenpost, that reprinted the Charlie Hebdo cartoons said it suffered an arson attack overnight.
The incident happened at about 2 am local time. Unidentified people threw stones and an incendiary devices into the building housing the “Hamburger Morgenpost” tabloid newspaper in Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city.
“Rocks and then a burning object were thrown through the window,” a police spokesman told AFP. “Two rooms on the lower floors were damaged but the fire was put out quickly.”
Nobody was hurt in the attack, police say. The newspaper said there were no people inside the building when the attack happened.
The attack was launched from a courtyard in the newspaper’s building and hit its archive room, where some files burned.
“It's true: Tonight there was an arson attack on our newspaper,” the Hamburger Morgenpost said on Twitter.
Police have arrested two men who were behaving suspiciously in the area at the time of the attack, said the newspaper. The authorities have launched an investigation.
The Hamburger Morgenpost reprinted cartoons created by the Charlie Hebdo magazine whose HQ in Paris was attacked on January 7. Twelve people, including famous cartoonists, were killed in the massacre.
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