Paris Attacks Update: Female Suicide Bomber Didn’t Detonate Herself

Reports from French authorities claim that Hasna Ait Boulahcen, the woman who allegedly detonated a suicide vest during Wednesday’s deadly raid in Saint-Denis, Paris, may not have been the one to detonate a suicide vest during the attack.

Europe’s first female suicide bomber ‘did not blow herself up’ https://t.co/VftmF1szDZ

— The Independent (@Independent) November 20, 2015

The Independent reports that French police have released a statement suggesting that the suicide bomber was likely a man and not Boulahcen. Confusion arose as a result of the mess that was left behind in the wake of the prolonged firefight with police. Boulahcen’s body parts were found strewn across the apartment, and she was the last one to speak to police before the detonation of a suicide vest.

After the Paris attacks last week, it was her phone calls to her cousin Abdelhamid Abaaoud that led police to the flat in Saint-Denis. French police had Boulahcen under surveillance due to her links to drug networks in France, tapping her phone as part of a drugs investigation. Boulahcen fell under intense scrutiny after the attacks, after a tip off from an anonymous source in Morocco suggested that Abdelhamid Abaaoud was in France and connected to the Paris attacks.

This revelation comes just before four more arrests have been made in Belgium’s capital of Brussels in connection with the Paris attacks.

Brussels was under a high security alert Saturday morning, with subway service suspended and citizens advised to avoid any large gatherings like sporting events or concerts. CNN reports the security lockdown was due to a “serious and imminent threat” to the people of Brussels.

US citizens in Belgium: exercise caution in your surroundings. Keep up with latest security messages from Belgium: https://t.co/89KPABbH9O

— Travel – State Dept (@TravelGov) November 21, 2015

The suburb of Molenbeek, which has in recent months become a hotbed of ISIS activity, particularly after the Paris attacks, was the site of yet another raid by police. Belgian police arrested four individuals suspected of planning an attack on Brussels, who also had ties to the Paris attacks last week.

Turkish authorities made three arrests Friday, in connection with the Paris attacks.

Ahmet Dahmani, 26, was one of the individuals arrested, the Belgian citizen of Moroccan descent is suspected of scouting locations in Paris for the deadly attacks.

Ahmet Tahir and Mohammed Verd, two Syrian nationals, were arrested after traveling from Syria to meet with Dahmani. Authorities suspect that they planned to smuggle Dahmani to Syria in order to avoid arrest.

Despite the increasing number of arrests, one of the suspected plotters of the Paris attacks, Salah Abdesalam, continues to evade police. He was last seen on the night of the Paris attacks, headed toward the Belgian border.

After the raid in Saint-Denis by French authorities, Belgian authorities have kept the country on a security lockdown, conducting raids of their own mostly in the suburb of Molenbeek. Nine people have been detained throughout the country, in connection to the Paris attacks.

Belgium has been a convenient site for ISIS to plan further attacks, in part because of its central location and its open border policy with neighboring countries, ABC News reports.

“They shop around for locations where it’s easier to be unnoticed, or that your opponents will lose your tail,” said the Director of the Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism at Leiden University.

Belgian authorities lack the jurisdiction to chase criminals across their borders into neighboring countries, making it easy for potential terrorists to evade capture while scouting locations for future attacks. Adding to that, Belgium’s notoriously poor law enforcement and an existing population of disenfranchised and impoverished youth, the small European country seems ideal for potential attackers to set up shop and plan attacks like the ones in Paris.

“It’s relatively easy to get your hands on heavy arms in Brussels,” said Brice De Ruyver, a professor of criminology at Ghent University.

[Photo by Getty Images]