French law enforcement officers have been told to erase all social media profiles and to carry their weapons at all times because terror sleeper cells have been activated within the last 24 hours, a French police source told CNN on Saturday.
French authorities also learned Saturday that the remaining female suspect wanted in connection with the terrorist attacks in Paris, Hyat Boumeddiene, traveled to Turkey on Jan. 2.
Turkish police have tracked her movements, the source told CNN.
Officials believe Ms. Boumeddiene left Turkey “of course to reach Syria” at the beginning of the year.
The newest information could mean that Ms. Boumeddiene was not in France at the time of Thursday’s deadly shooting of a policewoman in Paris, as was originally believed by authorities.
Authorities did not offer an explanation for the mix-up but assured that Ms. Boumeddiene is wanted in connection with a terrorist attack.
The news also comes after claims surfaced linking one of the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo attack with the so-called underwear bomber, who sought to bring down a plane over Detroit in 2009, CNN reported. The connection has not yet been confirmed.
French officials are still trying to sort out the connections between the three suspects killed Friday during two police sieges in Paris.
The suspects were brothers Cherif ans Said Kouachi, who carried out the attack on the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and; and Amedy Coulibaly, suspected in the death of a French policewoman Thursday and the shootings and hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket on Friday.
Investigators in France and the U.S. are looking into evidence connecting the Kouachi brothers to terror networks including Al Qaeda in Yemen and the Islamic State.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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