The wife of the terrorist behind a supermarket siege in Paris last week had most likely crossed into Syria on Thursday, according to airport security footage shot in Istanbul last week.
Hayat Boumedienne arrived in Turkey from Madrid on Jan. 2, ahead of the terrorist rampage in France and stayed at a hotel in Istanbul, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the state-run Anadolu Agency on Monday. The 26-year-old has been identified as the common-law wife and suspected accomplice of Amédy Coulibaly, a militant Islamist who opened fire inside a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday, killing 4 people before dying in a gun battle with police authorities.
A massive international manhunt has since been underway to locate Boumedienne, who has been described as a "probable" accomplice to three days of bloodshed and terror around the capital, the Associated Press reported.
The female suspect reportedly crossed into Syria on Jan. 8, the same day her 32-year-old husband fatally shot a policewoman on the outskirts of Paris and a day after Al Qaeda-linked terrorist brothers, Said and Chérif Kouachi, methodically executed 12 people in an attack on the Paris headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, French authorities said, adding that both attacks were believed to be coordinated.
Before Boumedienne made her way into Syria, she allegedly stayed at a hotel in Istanbul with another person. Her last phone signal was also on Jan. 8, from the Turkish border town of Akcakale, Sky News reported.
Boumedienne, who is from an Algerian background, was born into a family of seven in Villiers-sur-Marne. She is believed to have been radicalized after meeting Coulibaly in May 2009, authorities said.
The 26-year-old and the wife of one of the Kouachi brothers exchanged more than 500 phone calls in 2014, according to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins. Her father was said to be in shock when interviewed Friday by investigators, according to multiple French media reports.
The search has been described as urgent because "the threat is still present," Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls said.
Meanwhile, police are also searching for a person responsible for filming and posting a video of one of the attackers explaining how the massacre would unfold in Paris, according to Fox News.
